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ETHICS     OF 
DEMOCRACY 


A  Series   of   Optimistic    Essays 

on  the  Natural  Laws  of 

Human  Society 


LOUIS     F.     POST 


Moody     Publishing     Company 

35      NASSAU      STREET,      NEW      YORK 
1601       UNITY       BUILDING,       CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1903, 
BY  Louis  F.  Post. 


TO    THE    MEMORY     OF 


HENRY      GEORGE 


PRECEPTOR     AND     FRIEND 


a  Philosopher  who  profoundly  explored  the  princi- 
ples of  social  life  for  very  love  of  mankind,  a  Po- 
litical Economist  who  scientifically  traced  eco- 
nomic laws  to  their  roots  in  the  moral  law, 
a  popular  Leader  who  quailed  before  no 
moral   wrong,   a   devoted   Champion 
whose    faith    was    grounded    in 
moral     right,     a     constructive 
Statesman  who  saw  in  the 
ethics  of  democracy  the 
natural      laws      of 
human  progress. 


m 


Association  in  equality  is  the  law  of  progress. 
Association  frees  mental  power  for  expenditure  in 
improvement,  and  equality,  or  justice,  or  freedom — 
for  the  terms  here  signify  the  same  thing,  the  recog- 
nition of  the  moral  law — prevents  the  dissipation  of 
this  power  in  fruitless  struggles.  Here  is  the  law 
of  progress,  which  will  explain  all  diversities,  all 
advances,  all  halts,  and  retrogressions. —  Henry 
George,  in  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  Ch.  IH.  of 
Book  X. 


The  law  of  human  progress,  what  is  it  but  the 
moral  law?  Just  as  social  adjustments  promote  jus- 
tice, just  as  they  acknowledge  the  equality  of  right 
between  man  and  man,  just  as  they  insure  to  each 
the  perfect  liberty  which  is  bounded  only  by  the 
equal  liberty  of  every  other,  must  civilization  ad- 
vance. Just  as  they  fail  in  this,  must  advancing 
civilization  come  to  a  halt  and  recede.  —  "Progress 
and  Poverty,"  same  chapter. 


iv 


CONTENTS 


Dedication 

I N  TRODUCTION — DeM  OCRAC  Y 


PAGE 
iii 
ix 


Part  One — The  Democratic  Optimist. 


Chapter       I. — Spurious  Optimism 

Chapter     II. — Affirmative  Negations  and  Negative  Affir- 
mations     

Chapter    III. — Optimistic   Pessimism 

Chapter    IV. — Destruction  for  Construction 


9 
13 
16 


Part  Two — Individual  Life. 


Chapter       I. — The  College  Graduate  ,     . 

Chapter     II. — Success 

Chapter    III. — Respecting  the  Respectable 


23 

26 

41 


Part  Three — Business  Life. 


Chapter       I. — Honesty  the  Best  Policy 

Chapter  II. — Justice  or  Sacrifice  . 

Chapter  III. — Service   for   Service 

Chapter  IV. — Great  Fortunes    . 


49 
56 
67 
79 


Part  Four — Economic  Tendencies. 


Chapter       I. — Department  Stores 

Chapter  II. — General    Business    Concentration 

Chapter  III. — The  Rage  for  Trusts   .... 

Chapter  IV. — The  Trend  of  the  Trust   . 

Chapter  V. — The  Trust  as  a  Natural  Evolution 

Chapter  VI. — The  Trust  and  Socialism  . 

Chapter  VII. — The  Trust  and  the  Single  Tax  . 


87 
95 
100 
109 
114 
123 
131 


VI 


CONTENTS 


Part  Five—Politico-Economic  PRiNapLES. 

PAGE 

Chapter       I. — Political  Econoniy  a  Science  of  Tendencies  147 

Chapter     II. — Free  Competition 158 

Chapter    III — The  Laborer  and  his  Hire 177 

Chapter    IV. — The  Wages   System 185 

Chapter     V. — Our    Foreign    Trade 197 

Chapter    VI. — An  Economic  Exploration  and  Survey  .     .  218 

Chapter  VII. — Social   Evolution 249 

Part  Six — Democratic  Government. 

Chapter       I. — Self -Government 259 

Chapter     II. — Universal  Suffrage 269 

Chapter    III. — Crime  and  Criminals 275 

Chapter    IV. — Public  Debts 282 

Chapter     V. — Trial  by  Jury 287 

Chapter    VI. — Imperialism 299 

Part  Seven — Patriotism. 

Chapter       I. — What  is  Patriotism? 319 

Chapter     II. — Patriotic  Ideals 331 

Chapter    III. — Trampling  upon  Patriotic  Ideals  ....  336 

Chapter    IV. — Partisanship 345 

Chapter      V. — Patriotic  Celebrations 349 

Conclusion — ^The  Great  Order  of  Things 355 

Index xxiv 


INTRODUCTION 


'Fear,  Craft  and  Avarice 
Cannot  rear  a  State. 

— Emerson. 


It  is  certain  that  democracy  annoys  one  part  of  the  community, 
and  that  aristocracy  oppresses  another  part. 

— De  Tocqueville's  "Democracy  in  America." 


Mf 


'There  never  was  separate  heart-beat  in  all  the  races  of  men. 

—John  Boyle  O'Reilly. 


Wherever  man  oppresses  man 

Beneath  Thy  liberal  sun, 
O  God !  be  there  Thine  arm  made  bare, 

Thy  righteous  will  be  done. 

—John  Hay. 


vm 


INTRODUCTION— DEMOCRACY 


**W  T  HEN  you  are  a-going  to  talk  about  democracy," 

V  V  said  an  observant  Negro  speaker  in  a  political 
campaign  in  Texas,  "you  want  to  name  the  brand."  It 
was  a  significant  remark,  and  its  importance  is  by  no 
means  limited  to  the  exigencies  of  political  campaign- 
ing in  Texas.  Democracy  is  everywhere  a  word  of 
varied  meaning.  Some  of  its  meanings,  too,  are  as 
illegitimate  as  the  Negro  campaigner  must  have  sus- 
pected. 

Its  verbal  parentage  is  legitimately  traced,  of  course, 
to  two  Greek  words  which  signify  respectively  "the  peo- 
ple" and  "government."  In  the  strict  etymological  sense, 
therefore,  democracy  means  government  by  all  the  people 
governed.  It  stands  out,  in  that  sense,  with  contra- 
distinctive  emphasis  against  monarchy,  which  is  gov- 
ernment by  one ;  against  anarchy,  which  is  government  by 
none ;  and  against  aristocracy,  which  is  government  by  a 
privileged  few. 

But  the  term  has  acquired  numerous  colloquial  mean- 
ings, some  of  which  retain  hardly  a  family  resemblance 
to  its  etymology.  The  particular  concept,  "government," 
often  fades  out  of  the  word  quite  completely,  while  the 
broad  general  concept,  "all  the  people,"  shrinks  to  a  mere 
class  significance.  Democracy  comes  thus  to  be  an  allu- 
sion to  the  common  life  of  the  so-called  "lower  classes." 

Of  this  species  there  are  many  varieties,  and  all  are  ac- 
cepted by  the  multifarious  grades  of  society  as  genuine 
democracy,  though  with  different  connotations  in  dif- 


X  INTRODUCTION 

fercnt  social  grades.  In  some  grades  the  word  stimulates  ; 
for  there  it  is  the  shibboleth  of  the  sturdy  common  people. 
Other  classes  are  sickened  by  it;  to  them  it  connotes 
nauseous  vulgarity. 

One  of  the  varieties  of  this  species  of  democracy  is 
distinguished  for  its  concern  with  personal  manners.  Men 
are  frequently  called  democratic  merely  because  their 
manners  are  boorish,  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
their  convictions  regarding  either  government  or  the  peo- 
ple. Confirmed  aristocrats,  for  instance,  are  described  as 
democratic,  because  they  occasionally  knock  about  in  their 
shirt  sleeves  as  "hail-fellow-well-met,"  with  temporarily 
agreeable  groups  of  their  social  "inferiors."  So  the 
men  they  knock  about  with  are  accounted  democrats, 
though  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  are  poor  or 
uncouth  or  both.  In  this  derivative  sense,  democracy  is 
an  illegitimate  word. 

No  man  is  genuinely  democratic  merely  because  he  as- 
sociates upon  terms  of  good  fellowship  with  persons 
whom  he  regards  as  inferior — ^not  even  if  he  likes  it. 
Neither  are  these  associates  of  his  democratic  merely 
because  they  belong  to  an  "inferior"  social  class.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  not  genuine  democracy  to  pattern  after 
classes  commonly  accounted  inferior,  by  imitating  their 
modes  of  dress  or  other  habits  of  life.  Such  affectations 
are  in  themselves  no  more  democratic  than  is  the  life 
of  those  classes  in  itself.  Democracy  raises  no  question  of 
clas^  life,  class  habits,  class  manners,  or  class  dress.  Shirt 
sleeves  do  not  make  a  democrat,  nor  does  a  dress  suit 
make  an  aristocrat. 

But  let  no  one  infer  that  democracy  has  nothing  to  do 
with  personal  behavior.  Genuine  manners,  the  manners 
that  come  from  good  feeling  rather  than  from  mere  train- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

ing,  those  especially  that  spring  from  a  living  faith  in  the 
essential  equality  of  men — such  manners  are  democratic 
in  the  truest  possible  sense. 

In  that  sense  of  the  word,  all  true  gentlemen  are  demo- 
crats and  all  true  democrats  are  gentlemen.  The  man 
of  sterling  democratic  manners  recoils  from  the  patron- 
izing spirit.  Whatever  he  does  for  others  is  done  simply 
as  one  of  them — not  as  a  benevolent  boss  but  as  a  brother 
or  neighbor ;  and  whatever  he  receives  from  others  he  re- 
ceives in  the  same  respectful  spirit  of  fraternal  equality. 
He  recoils,  moreover,  from  trespassing  upon  the  rights 
of  any  fellow  man,  as  instinctively  as  he  would  resent 
a  trespass  upon  his  own  rights. 

His  perception  of  rights  may  indeed  be  distorted. 
Familiar  customs,  class  associations,  misleading  modes 
of  thought,  sham  patriotism,  may  have  produced  in  his 
mind  fantastic  effects.  Inordinate  cultivation  of  love 
for  his  own  country,  for  instance,  may  have  enveloped 
his  thought  in  a  provincialism  that  makes  other  countries 
seem  more  or  less  uncivilized.  Or,  he  may  have  grown  up 
in  a  slave  community  where  he  has  learned  to  think  of 
the  rights  of  slaves  as  differing  greatly  from  the  rights 
of  free  men.  He  may,  again,  belong  to  a  "superior"  race 
group  which  inculcates  the  doctrine  of  inferior  rights  for 
men  of  "inferior"  races.  If  a  scion  of  aristocracy,  he  may 
have  come  to  look  upon  the  rights  of  the  common  people 
as  subordinate  to  those  of  his  own  class.  If  a  rich  par- 
venu, he  may  differentiate  between  the  rights  of  the  rich 
and  those  of  the  poor.  If  a  baffled  poor  man,  he  may  in- 
vest the  poor  with  rights  that  he  would  deny  to  the  rich. 
There  is  nothing  so  subtly  difficult  as  emancipating 
one's  mind  from  the  influence  of  one's  habitual  environ- 
ment. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

But  let  his  perception  of  rights  be  never  so  strangely 
distorted,  the  democratic  gentleman  respects  in  others 
of  all  classes,  all  the  rights  that  he  perceives  them  to 
possess.  Nor  is  that  the  whole  of  it.  In  this  fraternal 
disposition  of  his  there  lies  the  germ  of  that  perfect 
democracy  v^hich  is  expressed  by  the  Golden  Rule.  It 
gradually  pierces  the  crust  of  such  class  prejudices  as  he 
may  have,  and  in  good  time  blossoms  out  into  unreserved 
recognition  of  natural  rights  universally  equal.  Genuine 
democracy  of  this  personal  species  flourishes  in  all  coun- 
tries, among  all  classes,  with  all  races,  and  in  every 
condition  of  life. 

As  that  species  of  democracy  spreads  and  strengthens, 
it  develops  the  governmental  type,  with  which  the  present 
volume  is  most  directly  concerned.  The  word  preserves 
in  the  latter  use  the  full  etymological  sense  of  govern- 
ment by  all  the  people  governed,  this  type  of  democracy 
being  the  democracy  of  the  American  Declaration  of 
Independence,  which  inculcates  as  a  self-evident  truth 
the  principle  that  governments  derive  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  But  here  also  the 
word  has  connotations  that  break  the  confines  of  its  ety- 
mology. It  involves  not  only  the  idea  of  government  by 
all  the  people  governed,  which  implies  an  equal  voice  in 
the  common  counsels,  but  likewise  the  idea  of  government 
in  recognition  of  and  harmony  with  the  principle  of  equal 
natural  rights  in  all  other  respects.  Even  government 
by  all  is  not  democratic,  when  it  makes  discriminations 
as  to  persons  or  classes  with  reference  to  natural  rights. 
On  this  point,  too,  the  meaning  of  democracy  is  illumined 
by  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Not  merely  does 
government  derive  its  just  powers  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed,  as  that  American  magna  charta  asserts; 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

but,  as  it  also  asserts,  government  can  derive  no  powers 
that  are  unjust,  even  from  the  governed  themselves.  For 
governments,  says  this  venerated  document,  are  instituted 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  securing  natural  rights.  The  same 
idea  was  expressed  by  Madison  when  advocating,  in 
conjunction  with  Hamilton  and  Jay,  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution.  In  the  51st  number  of  the  Fed- 
eralist, Madison  wrote:  "Justice  is  the  end  of  govern- 
ment. It  is  the  end  of  civil  society.  It  ever  has  been, 
and  ever  will  be  pursued,  until  it  be  obtained,  or  until 
liberty  be  lost  in  the  pursuit." 

Sometimes  those  sentiments  are  ascribed,  with  an  air 
of  their  being  thus  finally  disposed  of,  to  an  "obsolete 
political  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century."  With 
materialistic  scholars  and  cunning  "grafters"  this  off- 
hand disposal  of  the  subject  has  become,  indeed,  quite 
the  fashion.  But  a  moral  law  does  not  lose  its  virtues 
because  the  philosophy  that  emphasizes  it  is  pronounced 
obsolete ;  and  the  moral  law  of  equal  human  rights  cannot 
be  so  easily  set  aside. 

As  was  written  a  score  of  years  ago,  by  the  teacher* 
to  whom  these  essays  are  dedicated:  "There  are  those 
who,  v/hen  it  suits  their  purpose,  say  that  there  are  no 
natural  rights,  but  that  all  rights  spring  from  the  grant 
of  the  sovereign  political  power.  It  were  waste  of  time 
to  argue  with  such  persons.  There  are  some  facts  so  ob- 
vious as  to  be  beyond  the  necessity  of  argument.  And 
one  of  these  facts,  attested  by  universal  consciousness,  is 
that  there  are  rights  as  between  man  and  man  which 
existed  before  the  formation  of  government,  and  which 
continue  to  exist  in  spite  of  the  abuse  of  government; 
that  there  is  a  higher  law  than  any  human  law — to  wit, 

*  " Social  Problems"  by  Henry  George.    Ch.  X. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

the  law  of  the  Creator,  impressed  upon  and  revealed 
through  nature,  which  is  before  and  above  human  laws, 
and  upon  conformity  to  which  all  human  laws  must 
depend  for  their  validity." 

He  who  denies  that  conclusion  may  be  an  aristocrat 
or  a  monarchist,  a  socialist  or  an  anarchist,  an  "annointed 
of  the  Lord"  or  a  hooligan  in  the  street,  but,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  whether  high  born  or  low  born,  whether 
wise  or  simple,  pious  or  profane,  whatever  his  religious, 
economic  or  political  professions  or  labels,  such  a  man 
is  not  a  democrat.  The  democratic  idea  as  applied  to  gov- 
ernment demands  that  equality  of  fundamental  rights  be 
recognized  as  a  natural  endowment  to  be  protected  as 
a  public  duty. 

Such  is  the  spirit  of  this  volume.  Its  democracy  is 
generic,  not  partisan.  If  at  times  it  leans  towards  the 
Democratic  party  of  American  politics,  that  is  only  as 
the  Democratic  party  is  democratic.  In  so  far  as  the 
Republican  party  is  democratic,  its  sympathies  are  with 
that  party  also.  The  fact  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
there  is  a  strain  of  democracy  in  the  history  of  both 
parties.  Both  sprang  into  being  from  a  democratic  im- 
pulse. Each  has  represented  historic  democratic  move- 
ments. Even  the  democratic  name  would  have  been 
appropriated  by  the  younger  party  but  for  its  pre-appro- 
priation  by  the  older.  That  these  two  parties  are  branches 
of  the  same  democratic  trunk  their  history  fully  attests. 

Half  a  century  before  the  present  Republican  party 
was  organized,  Jefferson  and  his  followers  had  called 
their  party  Republican.  They  were  democrats,  but 
"democrat"  was  as  objectionable  then  as  "anarchist"  is 
now.  For  that  reason  the  word  served  excellently  as  one 
of  those  verbal  bludgeons  which  respectable  mobs  like 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

to  hurl  at  those  who  do  not  agree  with  them.  Such  blud- 
geons bruise  worse  than  brickbats,  curiously  enough,  and 
it  is  safer  to  throw  them.  It  is  much  easier,  moreover, 
than  argument,  and  far  more  effective  with  the  mob- 
both  the  upper  mob  and  the  lower.  So  the  Federalists 
sneered  at  the  original  Republicans  as  "democrats,"  and 
the  offensive  epithet  stuck.  As  usual  with  offensive  epi- 
thets that  stick  to  good  movements,  it  came  later  on  to 
be  adopted  with  honor  as  a  substitute  for  the  official 
name.  Consequently,  when  the  slave  power  had  wrung 
most  of  the  democracy  out  of  the  Democratic  party,  and 
a  new  democracy  arose  in  the  middle  of  the  century, 
this  new  democracy  could  not  appropriate  the  democratic 
name.  It  was  already  the  cherished  political  trade-mark 
of  what  had  degenerated  into  an  amazingly  undemocratic 
Democratic  party.  As  the  new  democracy  was  thus  pre- 
vented from  adopting  its  most  appropriate  name,  it  did 
the  next  best  thing.  Having  revived  Jefferson's  princi- 
ples, it  resurrected  his  party  name  and  called  itself  Re- 
publican. 

This  democratic  party  of  Lincoln,  with  the  resurrected 
name  of  the  old  democratic  party  of  Jefferson,  made  an 
enviable  democratic  record,  somewhat  mottled  to  be  sure, 
and  there  are  still  within  it  sterling  democratic  ele- 
ments. But,  as  with  its  predecessor  of  the  anti-slavery 
period,  its  democratic  elements  have  long  been  without 
influence  in  the  leadership.  Very  much  as  the  power  of 
wealth  rooted  in  a  slavery  system  once  absorbed  the 
Democratic  party  and  silenced  the  democracy  within  it,  so 
has  the  power  of  even  greater  and  more  arrogant  wealth, 
rooted  in  a  complex  system  of  special  privilege  and 
fostered  by  an  industrial  era  of  high  tension,  absorbed  its 
Republican  successor  and  silenced  the  democracy  within 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

that.  With  this  silencing  of  the  democracy  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  however,  the  democracy  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  has  slowly  revived.  The  democrats  of  the 
American  electorate  are  consequently  separated  by  party 
lines.  In  the  Republican  party  are  the  democratic  Re- 
publicans whose  democracy  has  been  silenced  by  party 
authority;  in  the  Democratic  party  are  the  democratic 
Democrats  who  struggle  hopefully  against  a  greedy  and 
cunning  bi-partisan  plutocracy  for  party  control. 

It  is  to  these  democratic  Democrats  and  democratic 
Republicans  that  the  following  reflections  upon  demo- 
cratic ethics  are  addressed.  One  of  the  chapters  appeared 
originally  in  the  "Arena,"  of  Boston  and  New  York ;  an- 
other in  "What's  the  Use,"  of  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. ;  a  third 
in  a  Labor  Day  paper  of  Canada,  and  a  fourth  in  the 
"Mirror,"  of  St.  Louis.  To  those  publications  cordial 
acknowledgments  for  permission  to  revise  and  repub- 
lish are  hereby  made.  The  other  chapters  were  published 
originally  as  editorials  in  "The  Public,"  of  Chicago. 
They  comprise  the  permanent  parts  of  nearly  all  the  prin- 
cipal editorials  in  elucidation  of  this  general  subject 
which  the  writer,  as  editor  of  "The  Public,"  contributed 
to  that  periodical  during  the  first  five  years  of  its  publi- 
cation. Arranged  now  in  logical  sequence  and  partly  re- 
written, the  collection  as  a  whole  offers  an  optimistic 
presentation  of  the  democratic  theory  of  human  society. 

There  are  places  in  which  these  essays  will  doubtless 
seem  to  be  dogmatic.  If  they  are  so,  it  is  only  in  form  of 
expression  and  not  in  spirit.  But  even  in  the  form  of 
expression  there  is  really  no  dogmatism,  although  the 
contrary  inference  may  very  well  be  drawn  from  their 
positive  style.  This  positiveness,  indeed,  is  intentional, 
and  there  is  a  reason  for  it.     He  who  has  something 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

affirmative  to  say,  or  thinks  he  has,  ought  to  say  it  posi- 
tively if  he  says  it  at  all.  Fumbling  is  inexcusable — in 
printer's  ink ;  while  positiveness  has  at  least  the  one  rec- 
ommendation of  implying  that  the  author  has  given  his 
own  best  thought  to  his  work  and  believes  in  what  he 
writes. 

But  readers  need  not  believe  because  the  author  does. 
The  function  of  positive  writing  is  not  to  coerce  readers ; 
it  is  to  arouse  their  interest,  stimulate  their  thought,  and 
encourage  them  to  develop  their  intelligence.  The  in- 
dolent reader  may  fall  into  the  temptation  of  raising  the 
easy  objection  to  positive  styles  of  writing  that  they  are 
dogmatic ;  but  let  him  be  assured  that  it  will  benefit  him 
more  to  try  to  find  out  for  himself  why  the  "dogmatism" 
isn't  true.  It  is  equally  desirable,  of  course,  if  he  inclines 
to  assent  too  readily,  to  find  out  for  himself  why  it  is 
true. 

A  more  important  objection  to  the  essays  than  that 
they  are  dogmatic,  may  float  to  the  top  in  indolent  and 
thoughtless  minds,  or  be  thrown  upon  the  surface  of  such 
minds  by  trusted  leaders  who  love  darkness  rather  than 
light, — the  objection,  namely,  that  they  are  "pessimistic." 

To  that  objection  the  essays  themselves  furnish  a  full 
answer.  The  sum  and  substance  of  their  "pessimism"  is 
simply  this,  that  they  condemn  what  is  evil.  They  apply 
to  human  society  the  principle  of  the  Jewish  prophet,  that 
great  principle  of  moral  order  which  determines  the  in- 
variable sequence  of  human  progress — the  law  that  men 
must  cease  to  do  evil  before  they  can  learn  to  do  well.  If 
this  be  pessimism,  let  the  most  be  made  of  it.  But  it  is 
not  pessimism.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  fundamental 
law  of  all  sane  optimism. 

One  more  possible  criticism  may  properly  be  antici- 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

pated.  The  essays  are  open  to  the  objection  of  being 
"academic,"  because  they  deal  so  much  with  famiUar 
facts  and  elementary  principles  and  so  little  with  obscure 
details.  A  book  on  ethics  should  need  no  apology  for 
that.  But  quite  apart  from  this  reply,  it  may  be  urged 
that  there  is  peculiar  necessity,  in  these  days  of  which 
Mr.  Gradgrind  must  have  had  encouraging  dreams,  for 
repeatedly  harking  back  to  what  is  elementary  and  ought 
to  be  familiar. 

It  is  illustrated  by  the  old  lawyers'  story  of  a  young 
practitioner  who  was  arguing  elementary  principles  of 
law  very  elaborately  before  an  appellate  court.  "You 
may  assume,"  interrupted  one  of  the  judges,  with  a  shade 
of  dignified  impatience,  "that  the  Court  knows  a  little 
law."  Quite  good  naturedly  the  lawyer  retorted:  "I 
made  that  assumption  in  the  court  below,  your  Honor, 
and  that  is  the  reason  I  have  had  to  appeal." 

Nothing  is  so  badly  needed  in  our  day,  for  the  solution 
of  social,  industrial  and  political  problems,  as  academic 
discussion.  There  has  been  altogether  too  much  un- 
questioned devotion  of  late  years  to  inductive  nebulosity- 
Undigested  and  indigestible  statistics,  miscellaneous  facts 
without  unifying  theories,  "scientific"  fancies  without 
logical  substance,  have  been  allowed  too  much  liberty  in 
crowding  out  deductive  processes.  So  customary  has  it 
become  to  ignore  general  principles  and  distort  logical 
analysis,  that  ability  to  reason  with  precision  about  ab- 
stract subjects  of  common  interest  and  facts  of  common 
knowledge,  is  an  unusual  accomplishment.  The  syllo- 
gistic method,  which  demands  exactness  of  thought,  has 
been  largely  displaced  by  loose  analogical  habits  and 
speculative  inferences  from  "facts  and  figures." 

Nor  is  that  intellectual   degeneracy  confined  to  the 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

"vulgar  herd."  Even  sociological  specialists  are  in  the 
habit,  which  Emerson  condemned,  of  classifying  things 
by  their  accidental  appearances  instead  of  by  their  rela- 
tions of  cause  and  effect.  These  experts  have  abandoned 
themselves  so  completely  to  the  minute  study  of  multi- 
tudes of  minor  and  segregated  facts  relating  to  social  life, 
that  they  lose  sight  altogether  of  the  few  great  facts  and 
their  natural  relations,  and  superciliously  ignore  the  domi- 
nating principles  that  fairly  thrust  themselves  into  the 
mind  when  these  relations  are  considered.  Through  over- 
training in  particularization  they  seem  to  have  lost  the 
power  of  generalization,  thereby  confirming  the  theory 
that  Macaulay  advanced  when,  in  his  essay  on  History, 
he  wrote:  "The  talent  of  deciding  on  the  circumstances 
of  a  particular  case  is  often  possessed  in  the  highest  per- 
fection by  persons  destitute  of  the  power  of  generaliza- 
tion. .  .  .  Indeed,  the  species  of  discipline  by  which 
this  dexterity  is  acquired  tends  to  contract  the  mind  and 
to  render  it  incapable  of  abstract  reasoning."  What  the 
older  lawyers  alluded  to  when  they  used  to  speak  con- 
temptuously of  "case  lawyers"  is  what  many  modern 
students  of  social  philosophy  have  come  to  be.  The  "case 
lawyer"  ignored  general  principles  and  flourished  upon 
heterogeneous  precedents ;  the  modern  social  student, 
also  ignoring  general  principles,  thrives  upon  heteroge- 
neous instances.  There  is  necessity,  therefore,  for  em- 
phasizing the  elementary  natural  principles  of  social  life, 
those  laws  of  human  intercourse  that  need  only  to  be 
understood  to  be  accepted;  and  that  is  what  in  this 
volume  is  attempted. 

The  opening  chapters  deal  with  the  ethics  of  democracy 
in  their  bearing  upon  expectations  of  human  progress. 
The  difference  is  here  considered  between  spurious  and 


XX 


INTRODUCTION 


genuine  optimism — between  that  vulgar  optimism  which 
is  after  all  nothing  but  reckless  indifference  to  social 
wrong-doing  or  wicked  love  for  it,  and  the  wholesome 
and  effective  kind  of  optimism  which  abhors  and  con- 
demns what  is  wrong  and  inculcates  what  is  right.  With 
this  difference  distinguished,  the  way  is  clear  for  an  ex- 
posure of  some  of  the  pitfalls  that  yawn  for  young  men 
as  they  step  over  the  threshold  of  youth  and  advance 
along  the  pathway  of  serious  social  life.  These  are  not 
the  pitfalls  of  personal  immorality  of  which  young  men 
are  properly  but  abundantly  warned  by  other  writers. 
They  are  pitfalls  regarding  which  it  is  held  in  high 
places  to  be  pessimistic  to  give  warning.  As  a  rule,  such 
pitfalls  are  scrupulously  and  often  artistically  hidden 
from  the  sight  of  young  men  by  the  affectionate  folly  of 
their  experienced  elders.  It  is  regarded  as  only  a  fraud 
of  the  pious  order  to  assure  them  that  there  are  no  dan- 
gers of  that  kind.  So  young  men  fall  into  these  hidden 
and  decorated  pitfalls,  in  shoals — fall  into  them  helplessly 
without  knowing  that  they  exist.  They  are  even  pushed 
in,  to  make  a  causeway  over  which  a  few  of  their  privi- 
leged fellows  may  pass  on  to  ignoble  success.  Demo- 
cratic ethics  demand  that  this  pious  fraud  be  exposed, 
to  the  end  that  young  men  may  appreciate  the  dangers 
that  characterize  our  undemocratic  social  life,  and  may 
strive  for  a  realization  of  the  democratic  principles  under 
which  no  man's  failure  is  necessary  for  any  man's  suc- 
cess. 

Out  of  this  application  of  democratic  ethics  to  indi- 
vidual life  there  naturally  develops  a  consideration  of 
democracy  in  business  life.  That  in  turn  brings  forward 
for  examination  a  variety  of  economic  tendencies  and 
their    governing    politico-economic    principles,    through 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

which  the  democratic  ideal  lights  the  way.  With  the 
economics  of  social  life  grasped,  the  problems  of  demo- 
cratic government  are  easier  to  solve;  and  out  of  their 
solution  there  rises  a  conception  of  patriotism  the  thrill 
of  which  no  man  can  know  until  he  understands  that 
the  world  is  his  country  and  all  its  inhabitants  are  his 
fellow  citizens. 

The  concluding  chapter  expresses  what  the  preceding 
ones  suggest,  the  truth  that  in  the  moral  as  in  the  material 
universe  there  is  a  great  order,  a  great  harmony,  con- 
formity to  which  leads  mankind  upward  and  onward. 

Out  of  that  harmony  the  ethics  of  democracy  are 
evolved.  Along  with  its  development  the  victories  of 
democracy  are  won.  And  what  nobly  practical  ethics! 
What  soul-stirring  victories! 

Consider  the  ethical  touchstone  of  democracy — ^the 
principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  As  true  to  absolute 
morals  as  the  needle  to  the  pole,  its  use  with  intelligent 
sincerity  precludes  all  ethical  error.  There  is  no  social 
problem  so  intricate,  no  labyrinth  of  political  affairs  so 
confusing,  that  its  ethical  difficulties  cannot  be  overcome 
by  submission  in  good  faith  to  that  great  moral  principle. 
"Foremost  and  grandest  amid  the  teachings  of  Christ," 
said  Mazzini,  "were  these  two  inseparable  truths — 'There 
is  but  one  God ;  all  men  are  the  sons  of  God.' "  That  is 
no  pious  platitude.  It  is  a  recognition  of  the  fundamen- 
tal law  of  social  life.  And  Lowell  explained  its  applica- 
tion when  he  wrote:  "He's  true  to  God  who's  true  to 
man." 

Behold,  too,  democracy's  splendid  victories!  What  is 
the  history  of  social  progress  but  a  story  of  successive 
struggles  in  which  larger  and  larger  opportunities  for  all 
have  been  wrested  from  more  and  more  subtle  modes  of 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

privilege  for  the  few?  What  is  it  but  a  story  of  succes- 
sive achievements  for  freedom  over  tyranny,  on  higher 
and  higher  planes  ?  What  is  it  but  a  story  of  successive 
triumphs  for  the  rights  of  men  over  the  might  of  mas- 
ters? 

Nor  has  that  story  ended.  The  struggle  is  still  on. 
"Freedom  is  re-created  year  by  year,  in  hearts  wide  open 
on  the  Godward  side."  Now  as  ever  it  is  as  easy  to  be 
democratic  heroes — 

"    .     .     .     .    as  to  sit  the  idle  slaves, 
Of  a  legendary  virtue  carved  upon  our  fathers'  graves." 

Even  here  and  now  "Ormuzd  still  fights  with  Ahriman — 
the  Prince  of  Light  with  the  Powers  of  Darkness";  and 
"he  who  will  hear,  to  him  the  clarions  of  the  battle  call." 
The  warfare  of  democracy  against  privilege  in  the  most 
subtle  forms  it  has  yet  disclosed,  has  but  just  begun.  Yet 
we  may  confidently  believe,  with  the  optimism  of  the 
true  democrat,  that  this  modern  battle  for  the  ethics  of 
democracy  will  end,  as  all  those  that  have  preceded  it  in 
the  history  of  the  race  have  ended,  in  a  victory  for  rights 
over  privileges. 

Imperial  power  and  economic  monopoly  may  prosper 
for  a  time,  but  only  democracy  is  strong  to  the  end.  For 
democracy  is  an  expression  of  righteousness,  and  right- 
eousness alone  can  ultimately  prevail.  When  righteous- 
ness does  prevail,  then  will  there  be  universal  peace ;  not 
the  ghastly  peace  of  the  tomb,  but  the  loving  peace  of 
brotherly  justice.  And  with  that  peace  will  come  pros- 
perity ;  not  the  prosperity  of  a  Dives  with  its  crumbs  for 
a  Lazarus,  but  abundant  prosperity  for  Lazarus  and 
Dives  both — on  the  just  condition  that  the  one  quit  beg- 
ging and  the  other  plundering,  and  that  both  go  to 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

work.  This  is  the  era  of  natural  law  and  social  order 
which  it  is  the  function  of  democracy  to  usher  in.  This 
is  what  the  social  life  will  be  when  righteousness  and 
peace  shall  have  kissed,  and  the  ethics  of  democracy  are 
the  acknowledged  ethics  of  the  race. 


PART    ONE 


THE     DEMOCRATIC     OPTIMIST 


Cease  to  do  evil;  leam  to   do  well. 

— ^Isaiah,  Ch.  i.,  vs.  16-17. 


What  youth-hope  for  spirit  when  striving  is  old? 
What  warmth-hope  for  heart  with  a  hearthstone  a-cold? 
What  joy-hope  for  birth  while  a  birth-right  is  sold? 

— E.  J.  Salisbury,  in  The  Public,  February  3,  1900. 


See  how  the  passing  age  toils  on  its  way 
Down  Time's  long  thoroughfare.    Erect  by  day. 
In  painful   show  of  pride,  by  night  it  creeps 
Toward  Babylon  along  the  sombre  steeps 
That  bound  Oblivion.     Huge,  weary,  old, 
The  passing,  dying  age,  grown  rich,  grows  cold. 

But  once  this  age  was  lithe,  once  strong  and  young, 
Once  leaped  its  heart,  once  rang  the  song  it  sung. 
Once  Freedom  was  its  queen,  and  from  her  throne 
Men  heard  the  wonder-words:  "Ye  are  your  own!" 
Then  eager  Hope  looked  forth  to  halcyon  days 
Of  earth  all  beautiful  and  life  all  praise. 

But  now  the  watchers  stand,  and  now  they  peer, 
And  those   of  fainter  heart  grow   sick  with   fear 
To  see  the  old,  weak  age  draw  near  the  line 
Where  reckoning  History  waits  to  whisper:   "Mine!" 
But  down  from  other  heights  a  gladder  cry, 
Swift-winged  of  joy — "A  dawning  age!" — sweeps  by. 

And  Hope  shall  find  an  endless  halcyon  day, 
And  Freedom,  crowned  again,  shall  reign  for  aye, 
While  Music  sings  the  mother-song  of  earth 
To  men  made  men  again,  where  highest  worth 
Leads  on  to  Love ;  when  once  again  is  blown 
The  clarion-call  of  Truth:     "Ye  are  your  own!" 

— E.  J.  Salisbury,  in  The  Public,  December  2,  1899. 
3 


For  though  the  laws  of  Justice  seem  to  sleep, 
They  never  sleep;  but  like  the  ocean's  flood 

They  creep  up  to  the  water  mark  of  God, 
And  when  they  ebb  there  is  but  silent  slime. 

— C.  E.  S.  Wood,  in  The  Public,  April  26,  1902. 


"They  have  turned  earth  upside  down," 

Says   the   foe; 
"  They  have  come  to  bring  our  town 
Wreck  and  woe." 
To  this  never-ending  cry 
Boldly  here  we  make  reply: 
Yea  and  no. 

Upside  down  the  world  has  lain 

Many  a  year; 
We  to  turn  it  back  again 

Now  appear. 
Will  ye,  nill  ye,  we  will  do 
What  at  last  no  man  shall  rue; 

Have  no  fear. 

— Stephen  T.  Byington. 


CHAPTER  I 

SPURIOUS   OPTIMISM 

THERE  is  no  allusion  here  to  the  schools  of  philoso- 
phy known  respectively  as  "optimistic"  and  "pessi- 
mistic." The  reference  is  altogether  to  those  colloquial 
habits  of  speech  which  stigmatize  fault-finders  indiscrimi- 
nately as  pessimists,  and  commend  mere  applause-makers 
as  optimists.  While  pessimism  as  a  philosophy  has  been 
correctly  characterized  as  a  species  of  atheism,  that  char- 
acterization is  certainly  not  true  of  all  fault-finding;  and 
when  fault-finding  is  called  pessimism  and  then  indis- 
criminately denounced  as  atheism,  which  is  quite  a  usual 
thing,  the  characterization  is  so  unjust  as  to  warrant  the 
retort  in  kind  that  the  optimism  which  consists  in  ap- 
plause-making is  devil  worship.  Indeed,  what  but  devil 
worship  can  it  be  to  make  applause  for  wrong-doing? 

Optimism,  as  too  commonly  understood  and  boastfully 
inculcated,  is  a  spurious  thing.  So  far  from  being  a  liv- 
ing protest  against  atheism,  as  genuine  optimism  is,  it  is 
nothing  better  than  a  manifestation  of  mental  and  spirit- 
ual indolence.  "Things  have  always  come  out  right,  and 
they  always  will !"  laughs  the  spurious  optimist.  And 
then  he  turns  his  back  upon  the  task  his  Lord  proffers 
him.  He  thinks  of  God  as  a  miracle-worker,  who  makes 
the  world  progress  as  He  originally  created  it,  by  omnipo- 
tent fiat,  and  wants  no  human  co-operation  but  only 
human  applause. 

Of  this  type  of  optimist  was  the  lazy  farmer  who  said, 
one  beautiful  spring  day,  while  standing  upon  his  front 


6  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

stoop  and  looking  out  over  a  fallow  field :  If  God  wants  a 
crop  of  corn  in  that  field,  He  will  grow  one ;  if  He  doesn't, 
He  won't ;  whatever  is  to  be  will  be,  and  where's  the  use 
of  my  tearing  up  the  smooth  hard  ground  with  a  plow? 
Nay,  I  have  faith  in  the  goodness  of  God.  I  will  go  to 
the  circus  and  enjoy  myself,  while  He  makes  a  corn  crop 
for  me  if  He  wants  me  to  have  one." 

It  did  not  occur  to  this  happy-go-lucky  optimist  that 
God  is  rational  and  works  in  human  affairs  through 
human  channels  and  by  means  of  human  implements. 
He  did  not  realize  that  although  God  gives  the  increase, 
some  Paul  must  plant  and  some  ApoUos  water.  Instead 
of  resting  his  faith  upon  a  rational  God,  as  he  in  his 
pagan  ignorance  supposed,  he  was  resting  it  upon  an 
irrational  and  impossible  miracle-working  fetich.  But 
our  lazy  farmer  truly  types  the  spurious  optimist  in 
whose  philosophy  of  life  everything  is  for  the  best 
and  will  come  out  all  right  in  the  end.  This  species  of 
optimist  seems  to  imagine  that  God  in  His  goodness  will 
bring  the  increase,  no  matter  whether  a  Paul  plants  and 
an  Apollos  waters  or  not.  Too  lazy  mentally  to  think, 
too  lazy  spiritually  to  desire  to  act,  they  hail  content- 
ment as  a  virtue,  and  denounce  as  a  pessimist  whoever 
disturbs  their  indolent  serenity. 

Think  for  a  moment  of  the  attitude  of  these  spurious 
optimists.  It  is  not  for  them  to  consider  indications  of 
social  stagnation  or  decadence,  nor  to  work  for  social 
improvement.  Leave  all  that  to  God !  To  doubt  the  cer- 
tainty of  progress  is  to  doubt  Him.  Are  we  as  a  nation 
breaking  away  from  our  democratic  moorings  and  drift- 
ing as  the  republic  of  Rome  did,  into  a  whirlpool  of 
imperialism?  "Never  fear!  God  will  take  care  of  us. 
Don't  blaspheme  Him  by  urging  that  the  prow  of  the 


SPURIOUS  OPTIMISM  7 

ship  of  state  be  turned  in  another  direction.  He  will  do 
that  Himself  if  it  is  for  the  best.  Let  us  enjoy  the 
exciting  voyage.  Don't  be  a  pessimist!"  Are  our  insti- 
tutions making  classes  of  very  rich  and  very  poor,  of 
luxurious  idlers  and  impoverished  workers?  "Impossible. 
God  is  too  good  to  allow  that,  and  He  is  too  wise  and 
powerful  to  need  advice  or  help  from  us.  Let  us  laugh 
at  these  idle  fears  and  enjoy  the  unparalleled  progress 
we  are  making.    Don't  be  a  pessimist!" 

That  is  not  genuine  optimism.  It  is  only  the  pathetic 
optimism  of  the  child  in  a  boat,  gliding  swifter  and  swifter 
down  Niagara  River  on  toward  the  brink  of  the  thun- 
dering cataract,  that  claps  its  hands  in  baby  glee  at  the 
flowers  along  the  banks  as  they  rush  by,  until  the  boat 
topples  on  the  very  edge  of  the  abyss.  It  is  too  late  then 
for  genuine  optimism. 

Optimists  of  that  spurious  sort,  who  are  really  the  most 
dangerous  of  pessimists,  never  tire  of  cheerfully  assuring 
everybody  that  "the  world  moves  onward  and  upward  in 
spite  of  grumblers  and  fault-finders."  They  seldom  re- 
flect that  it  is  those  they  call  grumblers  and  fault-finders, 
the  people  who  "rail,"  as  they  would  put  it,  at  community 
evils — the  anti-monarchy  Sam  Adamses  and  Patrick 
Henrys,  the  anti-slavery  Garrisons  and  Beechers,  the  anti- 
monopoly  agitators  of  our  own  time — who  compel  the 
world  to  move  onward  and  upward.  Yet  evils  must  be 
rejected  if  progress  is  to  be  made.  No  community  any 
more  than  an  individual  soul  ever  learned  to  do  well 
without  first  ceasing  to  do  evil.  It  is  contrary  to  the 
natural  order.  "Cease  to  do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well,"  ex- 
presses the  universal  sequence  of  human  progress.  And 
as  no  imperfect  individual  would  ever  cease  to  do  evil  if 
the  grumblings  and  fault-findings  of  his  conscience  did 


8  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

not  spur  him  to  it,  so  no  community  evils  would  ever  be 
put  aside  if  it  were  not  for  the  grumblers  and  fault-finders 
who  disturb  the  social  calm  by  demanding  that  society 
cease  to  do  evil  in  order  that  it  may  learn  to  do  well. 

What  happy-go-lucky  optimists  have  ever  contributed 
to  the  onward  and  upward  movement  of  the  world? 
None.  They  seem  to  suppose  that  the  world  moves  on 
and  up,  not  in  consequence  of  impulses  from  so-called 
"pessimists"  who  agonize  for  it,  dying  daily  upon  ten 
thousand  crosses  for  the  remission  of  its  sins,  but  through 
some  divinely  miraculous  influence  if  they  belong  to  a 
church,  or  some  atheistically  evolutionary  process  if  their 
affiliations  are  "scientific." 


CHAPTER  II 

AFFIRMATIVE    NEGATIONS    AND    NEGATIVE 
AFFIRMATIONS 

OPTIMISM  of  the  happy-go-lucky  sort  has  but  one 
test  to  distinguish  good  from  bad.  It  clings  to 
the  affirmative;  it  abhors  the  negative.  'T  believe,"  said 
the  optimistic  sponsor  for  one  of  the  many  new  religious 
movements,  while  explaining  that  his  movement  aimed  to 
promote  the  affirmative  instead  of  the  negative  principle 
of  life — "I  believe,"  he  said,  "that  by  laying  stress  on 
the  affirmative,  the  world  will  be  improved";  and  then 
he  added,  by  way  of  exhortation :  "The  heart  lays  stress 
on  the  affirmative  when  it  loves,  and  on  the  negative  when 
it  hates." 

In  its  essence,  that  is  good  doctrine.  But  your  spuri- 
ous optimist  makes  its  truth  his  falsehood.  For  he 
ignores  the  spirit  of  the  doctrine,  which  makes  for  life, 
and  clings  to  its  letter,  which  kills.  His  error  is  not  in 
the  principle  he  proclaims.  The  principle  is  true.  It  is  in 
his  application  of  the  principle.  For  he  handily  settles 
the  question  of  which  of  two  opposing  things  is  affirm- 
ative, by  adopting  the  one  that  happens,  though  by  the 
merest  accident,  to  be  affirmative  in  form.  The  tempta- 
tion must  be  great  to  such  a  man  to  strike  from  the  deca- 
logue all  the  prohibitory  commandments  as  pessimistic 
negations. 

In  substance,  affirmation  is  indeed  life  and  negation 
death.  We  should  therefore  prefer  the  affirmative  to  the 
negative — that  which  is  engendered  by  love  to  that  which 


lo  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

is  engendered  by  hate.  But  before  doing  so,  let  us  be 
sure  that  the  subject  of  our  choice  is  substance  regardless 
of  form  and  not  form  regardless  of  substance.  Affirma- 
tive negations,  which  are  affirmative  in  form  but  negate 
the  substance,  must  be  distinguished  from  negative  affir- 
mations, which  are  negative  in  form  but  affirm  the  sub- 
stance. 

An  impressive  example  of  the  negative  affirmation  is  to 
be  found  in  the  political  history  of  the  United  States. 
The  Republican  party  at  its  birth  was  in  form  a  party 
of  negation.  It  held  but  two  leading  doctrines,  and  both 
were  what  at  a  more  recent  time  would  have  been  slang- 
ily  called  "anties" — "anti-slavery"  and  "anti-polygamy." 
Yet,  essentially,  the  Republican  party  was  not  a  party  of 
negation.  Though  it  held  the  negative  side  of  the  issues 
of  that  day,  it  was  nevertheless  then  the  party  of  life  and 
progress.  Its  negation  of  the  false  was  equivalent  to  an 
affirmation  of  the  true.  Anti-slavery  and  anti-polygamy, 
though  in  form  negative,  were  in  substance  affirmative. 
Anti-wrong  is  always  pro-right. 

A  very  common  example  of  word  juggling  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  negations  the  appearance  of  affirma- 
tions, and  thereby  misleading  spurious  optimists,  may 
often  be  observed  in  the  proceedings  of  deliberative 
bodies.  It  is  a  common  trick  of  parliamentary  tactics. 
Whenever  the  tricky  tactician's  side  of  a  question  hap- 
pens to  be  in  negative  form,  he  moves  an  amendment 
which  embodies  essentially  the  same  proposition  in  affirm- 
ative form.  For  illustration:  It  is  moved  that  ten 
dollars  be  appropriated  to  such-and-such  a  purpose.  If 
this  presents  a  proposition  to  which  the  tactician  is  op- 
posed, he  moves  an  amendment  to  the  effect  that  the 
purpose  named  be  excluded  from  all  appropriations.    He 


AFFIRMATIVE   NEGATIONS         ii 

does  this  because  he  knows  that  the  spurious  opti- 
mists, and  they  usually  hold  the  balance  of  power  in 
assemblies,  will  vote  "aye"  as  naturally  as  leaves  wither 
in  the  Fall.  So,  with  an  inexperienced  opposition,  to- 
gether with  an  unfair  or  unsophisticated  chairman,  he 
may  succeed  in  this  design,  and  win  on  an  "aye"  vote 
the  identical  point  that  he  would  lose  on  a  "nay"  vote. 
A  little  intelligent  reflection  upon  this  common  parlia- 
mentary trick  should  suggest  to  spurious  optimists  that 
more  wholesome  affirmation  may  be  concealed  in  negative 
forms  than  they  had  suspected. 

By  some  such  word  juggling  all  the  opposition  to 
falsity  and  evil  that  has  given  life  to  the  world  could  be 
condemned  as  pessimistic  negation.  Error  could  always 
be  transformed  into  truth  if  mere  verbal  affirmation  were 
truth.  Suppose  one  should  assert  that  there  is  a  personal 
devil  superior  to  God;  or  that  the  earth  is  larger  than 
the  sun ;  or  that  dogs  are  men ;  or  that  theft  is  right- 
eous. Would  denial  be  negation  ?  Obviously  not.  What 
here  purport  to  be  affirmations  are  such  only  in  form. 
They  affirm  falsehood,  not  truth,  and  are  therefore  nega- 
tions of  substance.  To  deny  them  is,  consequently,  not 
negation.  In  spite  of  its  negative  form,  it  is  in  substance 
affirmation. 

This  is  true  of  the  whole  brood  of  negations  in  affirma- 
tive form  that  embryonic  tyranny  has  hatched  for  the 
deception  and  undoing  of  mankind.  Whenever  power 
goes  wrong,  the  evil  it  does  assumes  affirmative  forms. 
The  forms  of  righteousness  in  such  cases  must  conse- 
quently of  necessity  be  negative.  Before  condemning  any 
negation,  then,  which  consists  in  opposing  public  policies, 
it  is  of  transcendent  importance  that  those  policies,  even 
though  affirmative  in  form,  be  thoroughly  dissected  to 


la  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

see  if  they  may  not  nevertheless  be  negative  in  sub- 
stance. 

Opposition  to  wrong  things  is  not  negation  but  affirma- 
tion.   It  is  not  pessimism  but  optimism. 


CHAPTER   III 

OPTIMISTIC    PESSIMISM 

WHILE  much  that  passes  for  optimism  is  not  so  in 
fact, — while  it  is,-  as  already  suggested,  a  mani- 
festation of  mental  and  spiritual  indolence,  indulged 
in  by  good-natured  people  who  find  it  easier  to  trust  in 
God  lazily  and  praise  His  name  vociferously  than  to  help 
Him  industriously, — so,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  much 
genuine  optimism  in  what  passes  for  pessimism.  There 
are  times  when  the  best  expression  of  Godward  opti- 
mism is  an  aggressive  "pessimism"  vitalized  with  a  keen 
sense  of  outraged  justice. 

The  man  who,  though  hopeless  of  the  triumph  of  jus- 
tice over  injustice,  of  right  over  wrong,  yet  fights  for  jus- 
tice, dies  for  justice  if  need  be,  lives  or  pleads  or  suffers 
for  justice,  even  scolds  for  justice's  sake  if  he  can  do 
nothing  better — that  man,  though  he  deny  God  with  his 
lips,  cherishes  Him  in  his  heart.  He  may  profess  to  be 
hopeless,  but  his  life  testifies  to  his  faith.  At  the  worst  he 
is  an  inverted  hypocrite,  and  that  is  vastly  better  than  an 
inverted  saint.  In  comparison  with  pessimists  of  this 
kind,  the  happy-go-lucky  lotus-eating  optimists  are  sorry 
creatures,  though  they  be  in  the  majority  a  thousand  to 
one. 

To  warn  an  erring  people  that  they  must  mend  their 
ways  or  perish  is  not  atheistic  pessimism.  It  is  God- 
ward  optimism  at  its  best  but  hardest  and  most  thank- 
less work.     Doubtless  the  spurious  optimists  of  Ninq- 

13 


14  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

veh  thought  Jonah  an  atheistic  pessimist  when  he  dole- 
fully foretold  the  destruction  of  their  proud  and  prosper- 
ous city.  But  Jonah  was  certainly  not  an  atheist,  and  his 
pessimism  was  their  salvation.  Noah,  too,  was  a  pessi- 
mist; and  if  his  pessimism  did  not  save  the  happy-go- 
lucky  optimists  of  his  day,  who  thought  the  deluge 
"wasn't  going  to  be  much  of  a  shower,"  it  was  because 
they  refused  to  heed  his  prophecies  of  disaster.  In  our 
time,  as  in  Noah's  and  Jonah's,  God  sends  his  warning 
messages  through  so-called  pessimists.  "If  ye  keep  on 
denying  in  your  lives  this  truth  and  that,"  say  they,  as 
Jonah  said  to  the  Ninevites,  "ye  are  doomed !  Unless  ye 
mend  your  ways,  ye  shall  surely  perish !"  That  has  been 
the  cry  of  the  pessimism  that  in  reality  is  optimism,  all 
down  the  ages.  It  is  the  cry  that  has  made  the  world 
advance. 

For  the  world  has  advanced,  and  it  does  advance,  not 
only  in  victories  over  external  nature,  but  also  along  the 
lines  of  moral  righteousness.  Though  there  are  fluctua- 
tions, now  up  and  now  down,  now  forward  and  now 
backward,  the  trend  is  ever  upward  and  onward.  He 
would  be  blind  who  could  not  see  it.  But  every  one 
does  see  it,  and  because  that  is  so  it  is  the  jolly  stock  in 
trade  of  happy-go-lucky  optimists.  None  of  their  kind 
ever  helps  to  make  or  maintain  this  trend,  unless  by  acci- 
dent and  after  the  worst  of  the  work  is  over.  They  do 
not  give  warning  like  Jonah,  nor  are  they  disposed  to 
mend  their  ways  like  the  Ninevites.  Their  principal 
function  seems  always  to  have  been  to  sing  about  ac- 
complished progress  while  good  naturedly  obstructing 
further  progress. 

The  lesson  these  spurious  optimists  need  to  learn  is 
that  a  jolly  state  of  mind  is  not  necessarily  optimism.    If 


OPTIMISTIC   PESSIMISM  15 

it  were,  the  mother  weeping  over  the  dead  body  of  her 
first  born  would  be  a  pessimist,  while  the  heartless  fool 
laughing  at  the  funeral  would  be  an  optimist  A  gloomy 
outlook  is  not  necessarily  inconsistent  with  optimism, 
although  it  does  make  useless  demands  upon  the  vital 
energies ;  nor  is  a  smiling  face  necessarily  inconsistent  with 
pessimism  of  the  deadliest  type.  Whether  one  is  a  true 
optimist  or  a  true  pessimist  depends  less  upon  such  super- 
ficial things  than  upon  the  direction  of  his  life.  To  live 
towards  the  development  of  righteousness  is  to  be  an 
optimist;  to  live  indifferent  to  righteousness — no  matter 
whether  sadly  indifferent  or  cheerfully  so — is  to  be  a 
pessimist. 

The  selfish  man  is  no  optimist,  however  contented  and 
happy  and  cheerful  and  hopeful  and  churchly  he  may 
be.  The  happier  he  is  in  his  selfishness  and  the  more 
hopeful  about  it,  the  less  right  has  he  to  rank  as  an  opti- 
mist. Nor  is  the  unselfish  man  with  a  gloomy  outlook  a 
pessimist.  No  one  can  be  inwardly  hopeless  of  ultimate 
righteous  adjustments  who  gives  the  first  place  in  his 
life  to  a  just  though  unpopular  cause. 

It  is  by  striving  to  uproot  injustice  and  reverse  its  de- 
structive social  tendency,  that  men  prove  their  optimism 
and  godly  faith.  Tried  by  that  test,  the  blindest  atheists 
and  deadest  pessimists  of  any  day  and  generation  are  to 
be  found  among  the  most  pious  and  cheerful  "optimists." 
True  optimists,  on  the  contrary,  may  often  be  found 
verbally  denying  God  and  hopelessly  declaring  that  all  is 
vanity  and  vexation.  They  wear  outwardly  the  gloomy 
mask  of  atheistic  pessimism,  but  all  witliin  is  devotion 
and  faith. 


CHAPTER    IV 

DESTRUCTION    FOR   CONSTRUCTION 

*  *  r)  E  constructive,  not  destructive."  This  is  another 
L)  famiUar  slogan  of  the  spurious  optimist — some- 
thing Hke  his  plea  for  "affirmation,  not  negation."  And, 
as  with  that,  this  idea  of  construction  in  preference 
to  destruction  does  express  a  vital  truth ;  for  it  is  not 
destruction  but  construction,  towards  which  all  useful 
effort  is  directed.  Yet  the  idea  may  be,  and  commonly 
is,  so  stupidly  apprehended  as  to  turn  the  words  into  a 
sirens'  song. 

In  properly  rejecting  destructiveness  as  an  end,  we  are 
in  danger  of  improperly  rejecting  it  as  a  means  to  an 
end.  There  are  kinds  of  destruction  which  are  first  steps 
toward  solid  construction.  Before  we  can  construct  the 
good,  we  must  destroy  the  bad  it  is  to  replace.  False 
knowledge  must  be  unlearned  before  true  knowledge  can 
be  acquired.  Bad  morals  must  be  weeded  out  before 
good  morals  can  be  cultivated.  We  must  cease  to  do  evil 
before  we  can  learn  to  do  well.  Iconoclasm  is  an  essen- 
tial prerequisite  to  lasting  progress.  With  reference,  for 
instance,  to  false  religions,  atheism  may  well  be  the  begin- 
ning of  true  religious  experience.  When  a  man  who  has 
blindly  followed  pagan  leaders  in  religion  is  restored 
to  spiritual  sight,  he  is  apt  at  first  to  think  himself  an 
agnostic,  a  materialist,  an  atheist.  Spiritual  truth  dazzles 
him,  after  his  long  belief  in  spiritual  falsities ;  and,  like 
the  blind  man  whom  Jesus  restored  to  sight  at  Bethsaida, 

i6 


CONSTRUCTION  17 

he  sees  men  as  trees  walking — sees  spiritual  truths  dis- 
torted and  thinks  them  mystical  hallucinations.  But 
may  not  this  period  of  undiscriminating  skepticism  be 
as  a  passage  from  paganistic  piety  to  genuine  religion? 
May  it  not  be  only  a  phase  of  the  process  of  ceasing  to 
do  evil  in  order  to  learn  to  do  well  ? — a  necessary  part  of 
that  task  of  destroying  the  false  which  must  always  pre- 
cede any  solid  construction  of  the  true  ?  It  is  folly  to  de- 
nounce destructiveness  indiscriminately  and  to  urge  a 
"constructive  policy,"  when  the  site  for  good  construction 
is  occupied  by  "shacks."  Before  the  good  structure  can 
rise,  the  "shacks"  must  be  torn  down. 

Foundations  are  the  primary  concern  in  all  construc- 
tion. This  is  self-evident,  and  would  hardly  need  to  be 
mentioned  but  for  the  spurious  optimists  who  are  so 
prone  to  ignore  it.  The  man  who  built  his  house  upon 
the  sand  was  probably  one  of  them.  He  wanted  to  be 
constructive  without  being  destructive.  But  the  destruc- 
tive pessimist  who  hewed  away  at  the  rock  until  he  had 
destroyed  enough  of  it  to  make  him  a  foundation  there, 
proved  in  the  end,  when  the  rains  descended  and  the 
winds  blew  and  the  floods  came,  to  have  been  the  more 
constructive  optimist  of  the  two. 

The  principle  here  illustrated  with  reference  to  individ- 
ual character  applies  also  to  the  social  edifice.  Mankind 
cannot  build  new  social  structures  without  tearing  down 
old  ones.  They  cannot  adopt  the  exclusively  constructive 
plan  of  the  county  commissioners  in  a  State  that  need  not 
be  named,  who  "resolved,  first,  that  we  build  a  new  court 
house ;  resolved,  second,  that  we  build  the  new  court 
house  out  of  the  materials  of  the  old  one ;  and,  resolved, 
third,  that  we  use  the  old  court  house  until  the  new  one 
is  finished."    It  is  no  less  true  of  mankind  than  of  indi- 


i8  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

vidual  men,  that  we  must  destroy  before  we  can  construct, 
that  we  must  tear  down  before  we  can  build  up,  that  we 
must  put  aside  evil  before  we  can  learn  to  do  well. 

But  evil  cannot  be  put  aside,  either  by  individuals  or 
society,  until  it  has  been  faced,  recognized,  acknowledged 
and  intelligently  condemned.  Disinclination  to  do  this  is 
temptation.  The  individual  doesn't  like  to  face  his  own 
wickedness  and  call  it  by  its  right  name.  He  is  tempted 
not  to.  Public  opinion  doesn't  like  to  acknowledge  social 
wickedness  and  call  that  by  its  right  name.  It  is  tempted 
not  to.  But  of  all  temptations  this  is  the  one  that  both 
individuals  and  society  need  most  to  resist.  Neither  the 
individual  nor  society  can  progress  without  putting  aside 
evil,  and  evil  cannot  be  put  aside  until  it  is  acknowledged. 
But  resistance  to  the  temptation  to  deny  or  ignore  or 
boast  of  it,  to  the  temptation  to  feel  that  as  individuals 
we  ourselves  are  good  (no  matter  how  wicked  our  neigh- 
bors may  be)  and  that  society  as  a  whole  is  at  its  best — 
resistance  to  this  temptation  may  easily  be  mistaken  for 
destructive  pessimism.  Call  it  so  if  you  will,  but  make 
no  mistake  about  its  tremendous  import,  nevertheless,  in 
the  divine  economy.  In  the  individual  conscience  the  de- 
structive pessimist  that  awakens  and  stimulates  a  convic- 
tion of  individual  sin  is  remorse.  In  the  social  con- 
science analogous  awakenings  and  stimulation  are  caused 
by  so-called  pessimists,  by  the  men  who  "find  fault"  with 
and  "rail"  at  and  fight  against  the  social  evils  that  exist, 
without  seeming  to  offer  anything  in  their  place,  and 
who  sometimes  bring  exalted  defenders  of  those  evils  to 
the  bar  of  the  social  conscience  with  an  ominous,  "Thou 
art  the  man!" 

Out  of  the  pessimism  which  faces,  recognizes,  ac- 
knowledges and  condemns  existing  political,  industrial 


CONSTRUCTION  19 

and  social  evils,  springs  the  optimism  which  is  genuine, 
that  optimism  which  actually  makes  for  human  prog- 
ress, instead  of  the  spurious  and  frivolous  kind  which 
does  nothing  but  applaud — and  does  that  ex  post  facto. 
Society,  even  like  the  individual,  must  repent  in  order  to 
be  saved.  Social  repentance  is  too  often  mistaken  by 
the  unrepentant  for  atheistic  pessimism;  but  if  it  may 
be  called  pessimism  at  all,  it  is  the  pessimism  of  the  opti- 
mist. In  reality  it  is  not  pessimism.  It  is  a  quality  of 
genuine  optimism  without  which  there  could  be  no 
progress.  So  long  as  any  vestige  of  tyranny  remains  in 
human  government,  social  repentance  must  be  a  funda- 
mental principle  in  the  ethics  of  democracy.  Without 
realizing  the  necessity  for  acknowledging,  condemning 
and  destroying  social  institutions  that  are  morally  wrong, 
no  one  can  be  a  democratic  optimist. 


PART     TWO 


INDIVIDUAL    LIFE 


They  pass,  a  mighty  army 

From  every  race  and  age — 
The  just,  who  toiled  for  justice 

And  asked  no  other   wage. 

And  though  the  people's  laurels 

About  my  brow  I  bind — 
I  know  they  sought  a  city 

That  I  shall  never  find. 

They  climbed  the  large,  steep  pathway, 

By  saints  and  heroes  trod, 
To  the  home  of  the  ideal, 

And  to  the  mount  of  God. 

— May  Kj;ndall,  in  New  Age,  London. 


For  those  who  see  Truth  and  would  follow  her ;  for  those  who 
recognize  Justice  and  would  stand  for  her,  success  is  not  the  only 
thing.  Success!  Why,  Falsehood  has  often  that  to  give;  and 
Injustice  often  has  that  to  give.  Must  not  Truth  and  Justice  have 
something  to  give  that  is  their  own  by  proper  right — theirs  in 
essence,  and  not  by  accident?  That  they  have,  and  that  here  and 
now,  every  one  who  has  felt  their  exaltation  knows. 

— Henry  George,  in  "Progress  and  Poverty." 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   COLLEGE   GRADUATE 

WHOEVER  lives  in  the  future  while  he  is  young, 
cheerily  building  castles  in  Spain,  is  likely  as  he 
grows  old  to  live  in  the  past  and  wander  sadly  among 
the  tombs.  One  had  better  live  always  in  the  present, 
troubled  neither  by  day  dreams  of  opportunities  yet  to 
be  grasped  nor  by  morbid  memories  of  opportunities 
missed. 

But  living  in  the  present  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
wallowing  in  it.  To  live  in  the  present  does  not  mean 
that  the  future  may  be  left  to  look  out  for  itself,  nor  that 
the  dead  past  may  be  cynically  told  to  bury  its  own  dead. 
No  one  should  become  so  completely  absorbed  in  to-day 
as  to  remember  nothing  of  yesterday  and  care  nothing  for 
to-morrow.  The  past  is  a  present  gone ;  it  is  to  be  cher- 
ished for  its  lessons.  The  future  is  a  present  to  come;  it 
is  to  be  guarded  for  its  fruitions.  But  while  we  turn  to 
the  past  as  a  faithful  monitor  and  look  to  the  future  with 
rational  hope,  it  is  upon  the  present  that  our  lives  should 
at  all  times  concentrate.  Young  men  just  embarking 
upon  the  choppy  sea  of  practical  affairs,  will  find  this  ad- 
monition of  peculiar  value,  especially  those  young  men 
of  whom  the  American  college  graduate  is  a  type. 

The  average  college  graduate,  with  all  his  advantages 
in  some  respects,  is  pathetically  unfortunate  in  one  par- 
ticular. He  is  allowed  to  imagine — worse  yet,  he  is  con- 
firmed in  the  wretched  delusion — that  the  world  is  his  oys- 

33 


24  ETHICS    OF    DEMOCRACY 

ter  if  he  but  elect  to  open  it.  To  him  the  future  is  what 
Santa  Glaus  is  to  the  child,  except  that  children  are  unde- 
ceived in  good  time.  Even  while  the  Santa  Glaus  de- 
lusion lasts,  they  are  on  the  one  hand  entertained  by  it 
and  on  the  other  unharmed.  Not  so  with  the  college 
graduate.  His  Santa  Glaus  delusion  is  not  a  source  of 
innocent  amusement ;  it  is  the  cause  of  years  of  unwhole- 
some excitement  and  feverish  hope.  And  no  one  unde- 
ceives him.  Until  disappointment  has  succeeded  disap- 
pointment and  deadening  failure  has  at  last  crowned  his 
middle  life  with  thorns,  he  struggles  blindly  and  painfully 
on,  confident  that  the  non-existent  Santa  Glaus  of  his  un- 
der-graduate  days  will  yet  fill  his  stockings.  This  is  un- 
fair to  young  men.  Those  who  know  the  world  owe  it  to 
them  not  to  kindle  false  hopes.  They  owe  it  to  them  to 
tell  the  truth.  No  young  man  of  good  mettle  would  be 
discouraged  by  knowing  the  truth,  and  many  might  be 
saved  by  it  from  disaster. 

When  the  graduate  closes  his  college  career,  it  is  with 
the  expectation,  fostered  by  his  elders  throughout  his 
youth,  that  although  he  may  have  a  hard  struggle  in  the 
world,  he  will  surely  conquer  a  place  for  himself  if  he 
has  taken  due  advantage  of  what  his  college  has  offered 
him  and  shall  lead  an  honorable  and  industrious  life.  He 
may  see  wrecks  of  past  college  commencements  scattered 
all  along  the  shores  of  business  and  professional  life ;  but 
he  has  been  told  that  these  are  attributable  to  individual 
defects,  and  with  his  narrow  experience  and  implicit 
confidence  in  his  seniors,  he  believes  it.  Student  of  eco- 
nomics though  he  may  have  been,  the  idea  that  economic 
conditions  prevail  which  make  what  is  called  success 
impossible  for  the  mass  of  men  as  ambitious  and  capable 
as   himself   never   enters   his   mind.      Yet   the    chances 


THE   COLLEGE   GRADUATE         25 

are  very  many  to  one  that  he  will  be  sorely  disap- 
pointed. 

If  disappointments  of  this  kind  were  in  the  nature  of 
things — if,  for  example,  failure  in  life  were  like  death  in 
battle,  an  experience  that  must  come  inevitably  to  a  cer- 
tain proportion,  and  may  as  likely  come  to  one  as  to 
another,  regardless  of  personal  merits  or  defects — it 
might  be  unwholesome  pessimism  to  look  forward  to 
possible  failure.  The  child-like  optimism  of  most  new- 
fledged  graduates  would  then  be  something  to  encourage. 
Better  for  each  of  them  in  that  case  that  he  take  his  own 
success  for  granted  and  be  inspired  by  the  thought,  than 
that  he  risk  losing  heart  in  expectation  of  failure. 

But  these  disappointments  are  not  in  the  nature  of 
things.  They  are  abnormal.  Due  to  social  conditions 
which  are  traceable  to  man-made  customs  and  laws  at 
variance  with  the  laws  of  nature,  they  may  be  and  ought 
to  be  avoided.  For  that  reason,  the  sooner  college  gradu- 
ates learn  to  forecast  the  sickening  failures  that  lie  in  the 
path  of  most  of  their  number,  the  better  for  them  and 
for  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  While  they  are  yet  in  their 
strength,  they  should  be  stimulated  to  turn  their  atten- 
tion to  the  causes  of  almost  universal  failure  in  a  world 
in  which  there  ought  to  be  almost  universal  success. 


CHAPTER    II 

SUCCESS 

FAR  am  I  from  suggesting  that  even  under  prevailing 
industrial  conditions  the  greatest  success  cannot  be 
achieved  by  every  one.  There  is  a  kind  of  success  which, 
though  commonly  accounted  failure,  is  success  at  its 
highest.  The  door  to  this  is  wide  open  to  everybody,  but 
few  there  be  who  wish  to  enter  in  thereat.  Many  of  the 
"wrecks"  which  lie  strewn  along  the  shores  of  business 
and  professional  life  are  monuments  to  such  success,  a  suc- 
cess which  no  triumph  in  business  can  equal.  While  all  of 
these  "wrecks"  are  significant  of  a  state  of  society  that  is 
a  withering  rebuke  to  our  professions  of  Christianity, 
many  of  them  testify  to  glorious  victories  over  tempta- 
tions to  achieve  a  success  that  would  be  ignoble. 

Were  this  a  sermon  on  success,  it  would  pointedly  dis- 
tinguish the  different  kinds.  It  would  show  how  success 
may  consist  on  the  one  hand  in  building  up  character  with 
reference  to  moral  principle,  or,  on  the  other,  in  gaining 
more  or  less  of  the  whole  world  and  losing  your  own 
soul.  And  it  would  urge  the  lesson  of  the  high  moun- 
tain in  the  Holy  Land,  where  the  most  successful  Person- 
ality in  all  history  signalized  what  a  modern  business  man 
would  have  called  his  lack  of  business  sense,  with  the 
thrilling  exclamation :  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan !"  But 
this  is  not  to  be  a  sermon — at  any  rate,  not  that  kind  of 
sermon.  It  is  to  be  an  unreserved  inquiry  into  the  pos- 
sibilities of  achieving  the  species  of  success  which  happy- 

26 


SUCCESS  o.^ 

go-lucky  optimists  admire,  the  kind  of  success  whose 
treasures  are  subject  to  the  ravages  of  moths  and  thieves 
and  corruption. 

Success  of  this  kind  also  may,  indeed,  be  achieved 
under  prevailing  industrial  conditions.  Though  the  way 
to  it  is  not  open  to  everybody,  even  its  highest  places  are 
open  to  some  in  almost  every  generation.  What  your 
spurious  optimists  often  say  is  true,  that  there  is  "always 
plenty  of  room  at  the  top."  There  will  probably  never 
come  a  time  under  the  most  disordered  industrial  con- 
ditions when  twenty  thousand  dollar  men  will  not  be 
demanded  in  excess  of  the  supply.  The  characteristic 
evil  of  these  conditions  is  not  that  there  is  scant  room  at 
the  top,  but  that  there  is  no  room  at  the  bottom,  where 
in  the  nature  of  things  room  ought  to  be  abundant.  But 
roomy  as  it  is  at  the  top,  those  who  get  there  must  strain 
and  strive  to  climb  up  on  the  shoulders  of  their  fellows, 
with  little  regard  for  themselves  and  none  whatever  for 
the  rights  of  others  beyond  what  the  law  enforces  and 
public  opinion  exacts.  He  who  intends  to  secure  even  a 
moderate  measure  of  success,  as  success  goes,  must  be 
prepared  to  do  so  at  the  expense  of  the  rights  of  his 
brethren  and  his  own  bodily  health  and  moral  integrity. 

Let  no  one  shrink  at  this  assertion  nor  resent  it.  Every 
successful  man,  and  every  one  who  has  intelligently 
observed  the  successful  career  of  others,  knows  that  it 
is  only  at  the  cost  of  racked  nerves  and  either  a  racked 
or  deadened  conscience,  that  success  is  in  these  times 
secured.  Would  a  man  be  successful  in  manufactures 
or  commerce,  he  must  plot  and  plan  by  day  and  by  night 
to  obtain  privileges  or  advantages  enabling  him  to 
exact  tribute  out  of  the  sweat  of  his  fellow  men.  Would 
he  succeed  at  the  bar,  he  must  devote  himself  much  less 


28  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

to  the  goddess  of  Justice  than  to  the  grasping  interests 
of  monopolist  clients.  Even  in  the  ministry,  he  must  lay 
the  perfect  ashlar  of  Gospel  truth  in  a  bed  of  soft 
cushions  lest  its  squared  corners  bruise  wealthy  parish- 
ioners, or  he  will  find  himself  a  straggler  from  the 
ranks  of  successful  clergymen.  Let  him  go  into  any  of 
the  vocations,  from  petty  retail  merchant  to  great  manu- 
facturer, from  bootblack  to  policeman,  and  he  will  learn 
to  regard  the  measure  of  success  he  might  reasonably 
look  for,  as  something  which  he  can  get  and  keep  only 
as  others  as  meritorious,  though  maybe  not  so  rapacious 
as  himself,  are  headed  off. 

In  these  days  of  great  social  unrest,  caused  by  the  grow- 
ing pressure  upon  the  masses  of  men  of  poverty  and  fear 
of  poverty,  those  of  us  who  sympathize  with  the  restless 
and  are  counted,  if  indeed  we  do  not  count  ourselves, 
among  them,  are  frequently  assured  not  only  that  excep- 
tionally adaptable  persons  may,  but  that  all  persons  can, 
become  rich  if  they  try.  It  is  the  same  Santa  Glaus  story 
which  projects  the  optimistic  college  graduate  out  into  the 
swales  and  swamps  of  the  business  world  after  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp. 

Curiously  enough  this  theory  of  life  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  rich,  nor  even  to  those  who  have  not  laid  aside 
their  hopes  of  becoming  rich.  It  is  extremely  popular 
even  among  the  thriftless  and  shiftless  poor.  With  amus- 
ing confidence  men  badly  clothed  and  poorly  fed,  old  men, 
too,  to  whom  the  world  is  no  longer  an  inviting  oyster, 
will  often  contend  like  a  lawyer  for  his  fee,  that  anybody 
can  get  rich  if  he  tries — and  has  a  little  luck.  They 
would  have  you  believe  that  bad  luck  alone  accounts  for 
their  own  hapless  condition. 

And  the  thrifty  poor,  those  who  have  worked  and 


SUCCESS  29 

pinched  all  their  lives  but  are  passing  their  age  in  penury, 
those  pathetic  human  creatures  who  are,  as  Cowper 
writes, — 

"  Letting  down   buckets    into   empty  wells. 
And  growing  old  with  drawing  nothing  up," — 

they  do  not  even  admit  luck  as  a  factor,  but  are  firmly 
convinced  that  getting  rich  is  only  a  matter  of  working 
hard  enough  and  intelligently  enough  and  of  saving 
enough.  If  they  themselves  are  poor,  with  all  their  in- 
dustry and  thrift,  why,  "It's  God's  will !" 

Then  there  are  the  industrious  and  thrifty  who  do 
get  somewhat  ahead.  They  are  the  small  self-made  men 
whom  we  have  all  met.  Because  they  have  a  tuppenny 
share  in  some  subtle  scheme  for  making  the  many  support 
the  few,  they  imagine  that  they  are  superior  creatures. 
In  fact,  they  are  but  the  willing  retainers  and  stool 
pigeons  of  a  privileged  caste,  feeding  upon  the  leavings 
of  their  idle  and  thriftless  but  wealthy  and  unidentified 
masters.  Of  course  they  believe  that  anybody  can  suc- 
ceed, for  haven't  they  succeeded  ? 

And  this  much,  indeed,  is  doubtless  true,  that  anybody 
who  tries  to  get  rich,  and  does  the  right  things  at  the 
right  times,  will  succeed — measurably,  at  least.  But 
that  is  no  more  true  of  business  than  of  crime.  Is  it  re- 
torted, then,  that  the  contention  that  any  one  can  get  rich 
who  tries  is  not  an  argument  in  promotion  of  crime? 
The  retort  would  not  be  true.  This  contention  is,  indeed, 
not  intended  to  encourage  conventional  larceny,  but  it  is 
intended  to  encourage  processes  that  have  all  the  moral 
elements  of  larceny. 

Larceny  does  not  consist  merely  in  violating  larceny 


so  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

laws.  Though  there  were  no  larceny  laws,  stealing  would 
be  none  the  less  a  moral  crime.  To  steal  is  to  appropriate 
another's  just  property  against  his  will;  and  in  the  eye 
of  the  moral  law  the  manner  in  which  it  is  done  makes 
no  difference.  Some  men  do  it  by  stealth ;  when  detected 
they  are  imprisoned.  Some  do  it  by  violence,  using  club 
or  pistol  or  sandbag  to  enforce  their  nefarious  demands ; 
they,  too,  are  imprisoned  when  they  are  caught.  Others 
do  it  by  procuring  the  enactment  of  statutes  authorizing 
wholesale  depredation,  or  preventing  the  enactment  of 
statutes  abolishing  predatory  institutions.  These  are 
often  rewarded  with  large  loot  and  a  place  among  "our 
best  citizens."  Some  of  them  ascend  to  the  judgment 
seat  and  sit  in  the  chair  of  the  law-giver.  But  it  is 
larceny  all  the  same.  Legal  and  social  distinctions  there 
are,  but  there  is  no  room  for  moral  distinction.  Morally 
it  is  all  stealing. 

When  it  is  said  that  any  one  can  get  rich  if  he  tries, 
does  it  mean  that  opportunities  for  adding  to  the  world's 
wealth  are  abundant  and  that  by  utilizing  them  any  one 
can  become  rich  to  the  extent  of  his  usefulness  ?  Or  does 
it  mean  that  without  adding  to  the  world's  wealth  he 
can  if  he  tries  secure  to  himself  a  share  of  what  others 
add  to  it?  There  is  the  test.  If  it  is  said  to  mean  the 
former,  it  isn't  true.  If  the  latter,  it  isn't  honest.  Neither 
is  the  latter  true ;  for  though  some  may  prosper  by  mere 
appropriation  all  cannot.  What  the  prosperous  gain  their 
victims  must  lose. 

The  prime  condition  of  success  now  most  generally 
approved  is  somewhat  different  from  that  which  prevailed 
two  or  three  generations  ago.  In  their  youth  men  now  of 
middle  age  were  assiduously  taught  that  their  success 
would  depend  upon  their  piety.    This  idea  was  inculcated 


SUCCESS  31 

in  the  church,  in  the  home,  in  the  school ;  and  in  debating 
societies  lean  arguments  were  fattened  with  it.  It  was  the 
lesson  of  the  marble-back  story-books  in  Sunday-school 
libraries,  and  the  burden  of  all  other  respectable  vehicles 
of  advice  to  the  young.  In  the  pietized  imagination  of 
that  day  the  good  boy  was  destined,  if  he  escaped  an  early 
and  joyous  death,  to  become  a  rich  and  exemplary  man. 

Usually  the  illustrative  examples  were  mythical.  Yet 
living  ones  were  not  wanting.  The  theory  did  suffer  seri- 
ous strain  when  the  millionaire  Girard  was  mentioned; 
but  all  "infidels"  had  not  committed  themselves,  as  he 
had,  to  hostility  to  churches  in  their  wills ;  and  even  John 
Jacob  Astor  could  be  referred  to,  though  with  some  re- 
serve, as  a  poor  and  pious  boy  grown  wealthy.  Spectacu- 
lar success,  however,  was  not  common  then.  The  types 
were  the  little  rich  men  of  the  neighborhood.  With  but 
few  exceptions  they  were  conspicuously  pious ;  they  had 
in  almost  all  instances  been  poor  boys ;  and  as  uniformly 
as  circumstances  would  permit,  their  success  was  attrib- 
uted to  their  piety  from  youth  up.  Incidental  advantages 
were  often  known  to  have  contributed,  but  these  fortu- 
itous circumstances  were  not  considered  important 
enough  to  count. 

When  the  piety  of  that  period  is  analyzed,  its  nature 
seems  to  have  been  not  unfairly  exemplified  by  the  little 
Negro  of  the  wharves,  who  pushed  and  shoved  and  tram- 
pled upon  his  smaller  companions  to  get  the  pennies  a 
stranger  threw  over  a  ship's  side  in  order  to  see  the  dusky 
youngsters  scramble  for  them.  After  he  had  filled  his 
pockets  with  the  coin,  of  which  he  had  strenuously  pre- 
vented the  others  from  getting  a  share,  this  ebony  monop- 
olist in  embryo  refused  to  entertain  the  stranger  by  danc- 
ing, even  for  good  pay,  because  he  had  joined  the  church ! 


32  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Piety  consisted,  that  is,  chiefly  in  getting  into  church  and 
keeping  out  of  jail.  Given  those  two  conditions,  and  few 
questions  were  asked.  So  the  pious  were  supposed  to  suc- 
ceed, and  the  successful  were  supposed  to  be  pious. 

Not  many  sensible  people  to-day  would  attribute  suc- 
cess to  piety.  Too  many  pious  men  have  failed.  Too 
many  pious  men  are  hopelessly  poor.  Too  many  of  the 
unpious  have  been  crowned  with  success.  Even  pro- 
fessional pietists  no  longer  recommend  piety  for  business 
reasons.  Almost  universally  it  is  now  understood  that 
genuine  piety  is  a  positive  bar  to  success ;  and  as  for  the 
other  kind,  however  valuable  hypocrisy  may  once  have 
been  as  a  commercial  asset,  it  is  valuable  no  longer. 
While  ambitious  business  men  are  as  careful  as  ever  to 
keep  out  of  jail,  they  are  not  so  careful  to  get  into  church. 
Piety  as  a  specific  for  success  has  been  superseded  by 
industry.  The  successful  are  now  assumed  to  have  been 
industrious,  and  the  industrious  are  assured  of  success. 

This  notion  is  adopted  and  fondled  and  propagated  not 
only  by  those  who  are  ambitious  to  gain  as  much  of  the 
world  as  possible  though  they  lose  their  own  souls,  but  it 
is  also  approved  and  applauded  and  assiduously  im- 
pressed upon  the  minds  of  youth  by  professional  teachers 
of  moral  and  spiritual  philosophies.  It  is  the  latter  day 
substitute  for  piety.  But  will  it  work  any  better?  That 
is  the  question. 

The  best  expression,  perhaps,  of  this  modern  theory  of 
success  was  "The  Message  to  Garcia,"  a  tract  that  once 
evoked  very  general  applause.  One  railroad  magnate, 
who  had  himself  been  successful,  distributed  copies  broad- 
cast among  his  unsuccessful  subordinates  to  teach  them 
how  to  rise.  The  tract  told  of  a  young  military  officer 
who  early  in  the  war  with  Spain  was  given  a  message  by 


SUCCESS  s:, 

the  war  department  to  carry  to  the  Cuban  General, 
Garcia.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  messenger 
seemed  insurmountable.  But  he  made  no  protest  and 
asked  no  questions.  He  had  been  told  to  carry  a  message 
to  Garcia,  and  he  did  it.  The  tract  might  have  gained  in 
force  if  its  author  could  have  written  a  sequel  describ- 
ing the  consequent  success  of  the  plucky  young  officer — 
his  promotion,  say,  to  the  grade  of  brigadier-general.  But 
that  reward  did  not  go  to  the  officer  who  carried  the 
message  to  Garcia ;  it  was  reserved  for  the  one  who  per- 
petrated a  forgery  upon  Aguinaldo.  Despite  this  sug- 
gestive anti-climax,  however,  the  story  of  the  message  to 
Garcia  was  widely  accepted  as  a  true  exposition  of  the 
secret  of  business  success.  When  you  are'  told  by  your 
superiors  to  do  something,  don't  hesitate,  don't  question, 
but  do  it;  and  business  success  is  yours.  That  was  the 
moral. 

President  McKinley  spoke  to  the  same  effect  at  a 
colored  school  in  Louisiana,  during  his  continental  tour 
in  1901.  He  told  his  youthful  Negro  hearers  that  if  they 
would  get  an  education,  build  up  a  good  character,  and 
be  unfalteringly  industrious,  they  would  have  "success 
anywhere  and  everywhere,"  and  that  this  was  true  of 
blacks  and  whites  alike.  A  survival  of  the  pietistic  theory 
was  introduced  there,  in  the  allusion  to  building  up  a 
good  character.  There  was  also  a  reference  to  another 
theory  of  success,  which  once  had  general  vogue  but  is 
now  almost  monopolized  by  ambitious  schoolboys  and 
college  students — the  theory  that  book  education  opens 
the  way.  But  Mr.  McKinley,  like  the  author  of  "The 
Message  to  Garcia,"  laid  his  emphasis  upon  "unfaltering 
industry." 

Most  impressive,  however,  of  all  the  teachers  along 


34  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

this  line  has  been  Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab,  the  man  who 
from  an  impoverished  boyhood  was  reported  to  have 
risen  by  Garcia  message-carrying  methods  to  a  salaried 
position  of  a  million  dollars  a  year.  His  stupendous  suc- 
cess was  regarded  as  a  guaranty  of  his  competency  to  ad- 
vise. In  an  address  to  the  graduates  of  a  technical  school 
in  New  York,  Mr.  Schwab  summed  up  the  now  dominant 
philosophy  of  success  in  one  pregnant  sentence.  "Every- 
body," said  he,  "is  expected  to  do  his  duty ;  but  the  boy 
who  does  his  duty,  and  a  little  more  than  his  duty,  is  the 
boy  who  is  going  to  succeed  in  this  world." 

The  theory  of  success  thus  indicated  resembles  that 
which  it  has  displaced.  It  requires  an  excess  of  the  neces- 
sary virtue.  This  being  granted,  it  is  true.  Just  as  the 
idea  was  true  that  the  good  boy  would  succeed,  provided 
a  large  proportion  of  boys  were  not  good,  so  is  it  true 
that  the  industrious  boy  may  succeed,  provided  a  large 
proportion  of  boys  are  not  industrious.  The  industry 
must  always  be  excessive  or  it  doesn't  count  for  success. 
In  other  words,  this  much  belauded  secret  of  success  is 
effective  only  so  long  as  most  people  don't  act  upon  it. 

If  all  were  industrious  equally,  none  could  succeed. 
There  would  be  a  dead  level.  But  all  are  not  and  cannot 
be  equally  industrious.  Consequently  if  all  try  to  suc- 
ceed by  exceptional  industry,  the  great  mass  will  come 
into  a  condition  of  virtual  servitude  to  those  of  excep- 
tional powers — a.  servitude  that  would  be  all  the  more 
profitable  to  the  successful  ones  on  account  of  the  high 
standard  of  industry  the  universal  struggle  for  success 
would  establish. 

If,  for  illustration,  the  clerk  who  willingly  works  nine 
hours  when  the  rule  is  eight,  thereby  gains  promotion, 
and  if  all  in  the  office  are  ambitious,  the  rivalry  for  sue- 


SUCCESS  2S 

cess  will  result,  if  the  employer  also  is  ambitious,  in  ex- 
tending the  working  day  to  nine  hours.  After  that  the 
clerk  who  would  distinguish  himself  must  work  ten 
hours.  And  when  in  the  course  of  time  a  new  rivalry 
shall  have  raised  office  hours  to  this  standard,  willingness 
to  work  eleven  hours  will  be  the  test  of  industrial  worth. 
Nor  would  the  rivalry  end  here.  If  all  were  striving  for 
success,  it  would  not  end  until  the  standard  of  office  hours 
had  been  raised  so  high  as  to  abolish  general  leisure,  and 
a  few  men  of  exceptional  endurance  and  abilities  had 
become  masters  of  the  rest. 

Returning  from  this  illustration  to  the  more  general 
considerations  which  it  roughly  explains,  if  all  workers 
were  to  do  more  than  their  duty  in  some  degree,  only 
the  exceptional  ones  who  did  it  in  greater  degree  could 
win ;  and  if  all  rose  to  that  standard,  the  winners  would 
be  those  who  raised  the  standard  still  higher.  Should 
the  process  go  on,  none  could  succeed  finally  but  those 
who  so  far  overleaped  the  limits  of  their  duty  as  to  go 
the  full  length  of  human  endurance ;  and  then,  even  if  all 
were  endowed  with  equal  endurance,  success  could  no 
longer  depend  upon  excessive  industry.  None  could 
excel  when  all  had  reached  the  limit. 

The  time  would  never  come,  of  course,  when  all 
workers  would  reach  the  highest  standard  of  human  en- 
durance. Some  would  be  physically  too  weak  and  others 
morally  too  sane.  There  would  be  some  point  at  which 
the  great  mass  would  give  up  in  despair  ;*  and  when  that 

♦An  illustration  from  the  actual  experience  of  a  well-known 
man  was  furnished  by  Lincoln  Steffens  in  McClure's  Magazine 
for  August,  1903.  Mr.  Steffens  was  accounting  for  the  success 
of  Jacob  A.  Riis  as  a  newspaper  reporter  when  he  worked  for  an 
afternoon  newspaper.    "Beaten  at  first,"  Mr.  Steffens  writes,  "Riis 


26  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

point  had  been  reached  the  social  problem  would  be  just 
where  it  is  now,  just  where  it  would  have  remained  if  no 
universal  desire  to  succeed  by  excessive  industry  had  ta- 
ken possession  of  the  people.  Then,  as  now,  only  the  few 
could  succeed.  The  difference  would  be  that  with  the 
rest  the  strain  for  a  bare  living  would  be  more  tense, 
while  the  successful  few  would  have  to  be  stronger  than 
ever  and  more  insanely  ambitious.  Those  who  fell  below 
the  advanced  standard  would  still  be  crowded  to  the  wall, 
still  be  denounced  as  indolent,  still  be  robbed  of  the  lion's 
share  of  what  they  did  produce;  those  who  rose  above 
the  new  standard  would  still  thrive  upon  the  unrequited 
toil  of  their  brethren. 

That  industry  is  a  virtue  is  profoundly  true.  It  is  one, 
moreover,  which  is  too  much  neglected  by  all  classes. 
The  work  of  even  laborious  toilers  is  drudgery  rather 
than  industry,  and  a  vast  amount  of  upper  class  labor  is 
hardly  more  useful  or  honest  than  "the  process  known 
as  four  of  a  kind."  Whoever,  therefore,  writes  anything 
or  says  anything  calculated  to  stimulate  wholesome  in- 
dustry renders  a  public  service.  But  he  who  stimulates 
it  by  raising  hopes  of  business  success  as  the  reward  of 
industry — hopes  which  in  the  great  majority  of  cases 
must  turn  to  ashes — commits  a  social  crime. 

It  is  not  true,  as  is  often  asserted,  that  the  success  of 
our  rich  men  is  attributable  to  doing  more  than  their 
duty.  While  excessive  devotion  to  their  employers'  in- 
terests may  have  given  to  their  successful  business  career 

soon  was  beating  his  rival  reporters.  They  went  to  work  at  noon, 
he  came  down  at  eleven;  they  came  at  eleven,  he  at  eight;  they 
came  at  eight,  Riis  was  soon  covering  the  town  from  the  time 
the  morning  papers  went  to  press  at  2 :  30  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  to  that  'crazy'  extreme  the  others  would  not  follow." 


SUCCESS  37 

its  original  impulse,  other  factors  have  entered  in  to  pro- 
duce the  successful  result.  Good  or  bad  may  these  factors 
have  been ;  just  or  unjust ;  sordid  or  not ;  mean  or  manly 
— but  they,  and  not  alone  fidelity  to  an  employer's  inter- 
ests, not  alone  excessive  devotion  to  duty,  not  alone 
extraordinary  industry,  have  turned  the  scale  for  success 
or  failure. 

Many  factors  are  necessary  to  success,  and  most  im- 
portant of  all  at  the  present  time  is  some  advantage 
whereby  the  industry  of  the  unsuccessful  may  be  forced 
to  contribute  to  the  success  of  those  who  succeed.  Not 
until  a  man  can  live  in  fabulous  luxury  upon  the  labors 
of  others  is  he  accounted  successful.  For  that  reason 
alone  industry  is  no  guaranty  of  success  in  life.  The  in- 
dustrious as  a  class  cannot  succeed  so  long  as  success 
consists  in  the  possession  by  the  successful  of  power  to 
levy  tribute  upon  the  industry  of  the  unsuccessful.  To 
say  otherwise  is  to  make  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

By  natural  law,  success  does  depend  upon  industry; 
and  the  degree  and  intelligence  of  the  industry  does  nat- 
urally determine  the  measure  of  the  success.  This  would 
be  true,  also,  in  actual  experience,  if  industry  were  identi- 
fied exclusively  with  rendering  service.  Then  success 
would  not  be  merely  a  prize  for  the  extraordinary  feats 
of  a  few,  and  something  almost  as  difficult  to  keep  as  to 
get.  It  would  be  the  reward  of  all,  and  to  each  according 
to  the  measure  of  his  usefulness.  Each  would  get  his  own 
earnings.  But  industry  is  not  exclusively  identified  with 
rendering  service.  It  may  be  devoted  in  a  slave  country 
to  acquiring  slaves ;  and  there  the  successful  man  would 
be  he  who  had  acquired  enough  slaves  to  relieve  him  of 
all  necessity  for  working.  In  more  civilized  communities 
it  may  be  devoted  to  acquiring  financial  interests  that  are 


38  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

nourished  by  veiled  systems  of  slavery.  The  principle  is 
the  same;  it  is  only  the  method  that  differs.  And  just 
as  it  would  be  cruel  mockery  in  a  slave  country  to  tell 
slaves  that  excessive  industry  would  assure  them  busi- 
ness success,  when  in  fact  not  they  but  their  masters 
would  profit  by  their  greater  activity,  so  is  it  in  the 
country  of  higher  civilization — indeed,  it  is  even  more 
cruel  there,  because  more  deceptive — to  teach  young  men 
that  success  depends  upon  industry.  It  would  be  only 
the  truth  to  teach  that  it  depends  upon  monopoly. 

Does  not  every  intelligent  man  know,  and  will  not 
every  genuinely  honest  man  admit,  that  the  industrial 
power  of  the  present  time  centers  in  monopoly?  True 
enough,  monopoly  may  be  acquired  through  extraordi- 
nary industry,  so  long  as  the  standards  of  work  leave 
a  margin  for  extraordinary  labor  feats;  but  it  is  the 
monopoly,  all  the  same,  and  not  industry,  that  finally 
makes  success. 

Monopoly  is  a  process  of  levying  tribute  upon  the  in- 
dustrious for  the  benefit  of  monopoly  beneficiaries.  When 
it  exists,  increased  industry  among  non-monopolists  can- 
not benefit  them  as  a  class.  Some  of  their  number  may 
for  a  time  by  superior  energy  climb  out  of  their  class 
and  become  monopolists ;  but  as  soon  as  intensified  in- 
dustry becomes  general  all  its  profits  go  to  fatten  the 
monopoly  class  and  not  to  enrich  the  industrious  class. 

Incentives  to  general  industry  are  therefore  popular 
with  monopolists  and  their  agents  and  organs  of  opinion, 
and  with  their  dupes.  If  the  people  of  this  country  could 
be  induced  to  work  harder  in  the  hope  that  all  may 
thereby  win  success,  the  value  of  monopolies  would  rise. 
But  industry  in  general  would  be  no  better  paid;  and 
the  industrious  who  did  not  push  their  activities  above 


SUCCESS  39 

the  level  of  the  new  standards  would  win  no  prizes.  The 
frequently  repeated  advice  which  agents  and  beneficiaries 
of  monopoly  interests  give  to  young  men,  that  extra- 
ordinary industry  is  the  key  to  success,  is  suggestive  of 
the  method  of  making  the  mule  turn  the  mill  by  hanging 
a  bundle  of  hay  where  it  continually  dangles  before  his 
nose  but  always  eludes  his  reach. 

Yet  there  is  hope  in  this  theory  of  business  success.  It 
does  something  in  pushing  aside  the  old  idea  that  busi- 
ness success  is  the  reward  of  piety.  It  will  do  more 
presently  in  demonstrating  its  own  deceptiveness.  Not 
more  than  two  or  three  generations  are  likely  to  be 
fooled  by  it.  After  a  little  experience,  the  people  may 
be  trusted  to  recognize  that  under  existing  conditions 
success  does  not  depend  upon  industry,  as  a  rule  of  gen- 
eral application.  Yet  the  true  logic  of  the  rule  will  lose 
none  of  its  force.  The  conviction  will  still  remain  that 
industry,  even  though  not  the  measure  of  success,  cer- 
tainly ought  to  be. 

Let  the  people  once  look  at  the  matter  in  that  way, 
and  the  solution  of  the  social  problem  will  be  at  hand. 
They  cannot  long  look  upon  it  so  without  being  put  upon 
inquiry.  They  cannot  feel  that  industry  ought  to  be  the 
measure  of  success,  yet  realize  that  it  is  not,  without 
searching  earnestly  for  the  cause  of  this  conflict  between 
what  ought  to  be  and  what  is.  And  if  they  once  set  about 
searching  for  the  cause,  they  will  ultimately  find  it  in  the 
institution  of  monopoly — an  institution  so  obtrusive,  so 
bold,  so  comprehensively  explanatory,  as  to  make  them 
wonder  why  they  never  thought  of  it  before.  When  the 
theory  that  industry  is  the  true  measure  of  success  once 
receives  full  and  candid  consideration,  the  doom  of  mo- 
nopoly will  have  sounded.    For  then  it  will  be  seen  that 


40  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

with  equal  natural  opportunities  secured  to  all,  with 
justice  established  and  monopoly  abolished,  the  opti- 
mistic dream  of  the  college  graduate  would  come  true: 
that  without  nerve  strain  or  conscience  strain  all  could 
succeed  who  tried  to,  and  only  those  would  fail  who  de- 
served to  fail. 

Meanwhile,  however,  this  theory,  as  now  exploited,  is 
vicious  and  dangerous.  It  is  dangerous  because  it  will 
bitterly  disappoint  most  of  the  young  men  who  adopt  it ; 
and  in  their  blind  anger  they  may,  if  occasion  occurs, 
neither  weigh  the  wisdom  nor  count  the  cost  of  violence. 
Nothing  could  be  better  to  produce  reckless  revolution- 
aires.  It  is  vicious  because  it  gives  the  youth  of  the  coun- 
try a  fundamentally  false  idea  of  life.  Though  embody- 
ing a  substantial  truth,  the  truth  that  success  is  the  natural 
reward  of  industry,  this  false  theory  of  success  decep- 
tively inculcates  the  idea  that  existing  social  conditions 
actually  permit  the  rewards  of  industry  to  find  their  natu- 
ral objects.  It  conceals  the  monopolistic  influences  which 
now  disturb  the  natural  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  in- 
dustry, and  by  doing  that  it  falsifies  the  very  truth  it  em- 
bodies, thus  realizing  Tennyson's  thought  that  "a  lie 
which  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest  of  lies." 


CHAPTER    III 

RESPECTING  THE  RESPECTABLE 

CLOSELY  associated  with  the  half  truth  we  have  just 
considered,  is  the  pernicious  notion  that  respectable 
things  should  be  respected.  It  is  pernicious  not  because 
respectable  things  never  deserve  respect,  for  they  often 
do ;  but  because  the  standard  is  false.  It  takes  no  account 
of  worthiness,  no  account  of  truth. 

Of  all  rules  of  human  conduct  this  is  one  of  the  easiest 
to  obey.  Young  men  and  women  need  not  be  advised,  as 
they  so  often  are,  to  regulate  their  lives  by  it.  Most 
of  them  do  so  spontaneously.  Men  of  all  conditions  and 
vocations  intuitively  respect  the  respectable.  The  day 
laborer  shrinks  from  the  contempt  of  his  neighbors,  and 
guards  his  conduct  from  the  scorn  of  his  superiors ;  wish- 
ing to  be  respected  himself,  he  respects  the  respectable. 
Business  men  are  solicitous  for  the  good  opinion  of  the 
community  in  which  they  live;  if  from  no  higher  motive 
than  to  promote  their  own  business  success,  they,  too, 
respect  the  things  that  are  respectable.  The  lawyer  re- 
coils from  unprofessional  conduct  which  might  bring  him 
into  disgrace,  and  the  criminal  conceals  his  crimes  from 
the  public  as  much  from  dread  of  contumely  as  from 
fear  of  imprisonment.  Both  respect  what  is  respectable. 
Clergymen  conform  to  the  same  rule.  They  seldom  ven- 
ture to  preach  what  might  disturb  the  standards  of 
respectability  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  Even  de- 
voted reformers,  prophets  of  new  truths,  are  not  wholly 

41 


42  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

free  from  temptations  to  respect  the  things  that  are 
respectable.  Nor  can  they  be  blamed.  Physical  martyr- 
dom could  hardly  add  to  the  bitterness  of  that  martyrdom 
of  mind  which  sensitive  men  and  women  undergo  in 
testifying  to  truths  not  yet  generally  respected. 

This  tendency  to  respect  the  respectable  is  not  wholly 
selfish.  It  derives  a  strong  impulse  from  the  desire  to 
live  righteously — a  beneficent  influence  which  loses  its 
way  under  the  treacherous  guidance  of  the  idea  that  what- 
ever is  respectable  must  be  right.  But  whether  prompted 
by  tliat  impulse,  or  only  by  self-seeking,  the  tendency  is 
dangerous  and  the  precept  pernicious.  A  precept  which 
teaches  us  to  respect  the  respectable,  makes  respectability 
the  test  of  truth,  reputation  the  test  of  character,  clothing 
the  test  of  the  man.  All  these  standards  are  false. 
Though  outer  form  often  indicates  inner  substance,  form 
is  not  substance.  It  frequently  differs  from  it  so  radically 
as  to  have  suggested  the  significant  simile  of  "a  whited 
sepulchre  full  of  dead  men's  bones." 

This  discord  between  moral  substance  and  respectable 
form  is  almost  invariable  with  reference  to  the  more  vital 
matters  of  human  concern.  Probably  no  elemental  moral 
truth  ever  has  or  ever  will  come  into  the  world  in  re- 
spectable garb.  When  such  a  truth  becomes  clothed  on 
with  respectability,  its  essential  character  is  almost  cer- 
tain to  have  decayed  within  the  folds  of  its  outer  gar- 
ments, which  have  taken  their  shape  from  its  original 
form  but  are  now  all  hollow  within.  To  make  a  point  of 
respecting  the  respectable  is  to  prefer  non-essentials  to 
essentials  and  to  ignore  eternal  truths.  No  one  who 
makes  it  the  rule  of  his  life  can  keep  his  heart  "wide  open 
on  the  Godward  side." 

When  He  whose  incarnation  is  celebrated  at  Christmas 


RESPECTING  THE  RESPECTABLE  43 

time  came  into  this  world  of  ours,  the  Living  Truth  in 
human  shape,  men  of  that  generation  who  respected  the 
respectable  had  no  respect  for  Him.  Of  humble  birth; 
as  a  babe,  cradled  in  a  manger;  in  infancy,  hunted  for 
slaughter;  in  youth,  confounding  the  learned;  in  man- 
hood, working  at  a  mechanical  trade ;  during  His  mature 
life  associating  with  outcasts ;  regarded  by  the  pious  as  a 
blasphemer ;  and  dying  the  ignominious  death  of  a  convict 
— throughout  His  whole  career,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ex- 
hibited none  of  the  qualities  of  contemporaneous  respecta- 
bility. Even  to-day  the  respect  of  the  respectable  is  paid, 
not  to  Him,  but  only  to  his  image.  So  every  new  mani- 
festation of  truth  is  humbly  born ;  it,  also,  is  cradled  in 
some  manger;  it,  too,  is  hunted  down  in  infancy;  in  its 
youth  it,  likewise,  confounds  the  learned  who  respect  the 
things  that  are  respectable;  it  is  nurtured  by  the  lonely 
and  the  outcast ;  it  has  its  crucifixion  and  its  resurrection ; 
and  at  last  its  images  become  respectable,  and  are  wor- 
shipped by  those  who  respect  the  respectable.  That  has 
been  the  history  of  all  elemental  truths— economic,  moral, 
and  religious,  as  well  as  political. 

"  O  Truth  !     O  Freedom !    how  are  ye  still  bom 
In  the  rude  stable,  in  the  manger  nursed  !" 

Need  it  be  so  any  longer?  May  we  not  reasonably 
hope  that  the  time  is  near  at  hand  when  mankind  will 
resist  the  temptation  to  respect  and  to  inculcate  respect  for 
things  that  are  merely  respectable,  and  in  place  of  this 
image-worship  learn  to  respect  and  to  teach  respect  for 
the  things  that  are  true  ? 


PART     THREE 


BUSINESS     LIFE 


Strange  is  the  game  the  world  doth  play — 
Rouge  et  Noir,  with  the  counters  gold! 

Red  with  blood  and  black  with  sin; 

Few  and  fewer  are  they  that  win 
As  the  ages  pass  untold. 

— Charlotte  Perkins  Stetson. 


** 


When  John  on   Patmos  looked  into  the   New 

Jerusalem,  he  saw  a  wondrous  thing; 

The  streets  of  that  fair  city  were  all  paved 

With  that  which  earth  most  dear  and  precious  holds — 

With  purest  gold,  o'er  which  the  happy  feet 

Of  all  the  habiters  of  Heaven  went  up 

And  down.     So  might  not  this  declare  for  us 

The  proper  place  of  gold  in  that  Society 

Whose  frame  to-day  we  strive  with  so  much  toil 

To  shape  according  to  our  Vision's  plan? 

A  place  of  use,  in  truth,  on  which  to  build 

And  act;   only  for  use,  to  walk  upon, 

To  smooth  the  way  to  worship   and  to  work? 

But  we,  in  earth's  old  manner,  straight 

Reverse  this   use   and   fight  God's   good  intent. 

Instead   of  making  pavements   of  our  gold, 

We  beat  it  out  and  hammer  it  into 

A  dome,  and  raise  it  up  into  a  sky 

Above   our   heads.     And   then,   because   we   can 

No  more  behold  the  stars,  nor  can  the  sun 

Shine  through ;  because  earth's  furious  furnace-heat, 

Reflected,  burns  to  dust  our  heart's  sweet  flowers; 

Because  our  lives  begin  to  pale  and  faint 

Within  the  twilight  we  ourselves  have  made, 

We  bitterly  complain  to  heaven,  and  cry 

That  no  kind  Providence  has  planned  the  world. 

— Orville  E.  Watson. 


47 


Peace  between  Capital  and  Labor,  is  that  all  that  you  ask? 
Is  peace,  then,  the  only  thing  needful? 
There  was  peace  enough  in  Southern  slavery. 
There  is  a  peace  of  life  and  another  peace  of  death. 
It  is  well  to  rise  above  violence. 
It  is  well  to  rise  superior  to  anger. 

But  if  peace  means  final  acquiescence  in  wrong — if  your  aim 
is  less  than  justice  and  peace,  forever  one — then  your  peace 

is  a  crime. 

— Ernest  Crosby,  in  The  Whim. 


iWhat  shall  I  do  to  be  just? 

What  shall  I  do  for  the  gain 
Of  the  world — for  its  sadness? 

Teach  me,  O  Seers  that  I  trust ! 
Chart  me  the  difficult  main 

Leading  out  of  my  sorrow  and  madness; 
Preach  me  the  purging  of  pain. 

Shall  I  wrench  from  my  finger  the  ring 

To  cast  to  the  tramp  at  my  door? 
Shall  I  tear  off  each  luminous  thing 

To  drop  in  the  palm  of  the  poor? 
What  shall  I  do  to  be  just? 

Teach  me,  O  Ye  in  the  light. 
Whom  the  poor  and  the  rich  alike  trust ; 

My  heart  is  aflame  to  be  right. 

— Hamlin  Garland. 


48 


CHAPTER    I 

HONESTY  THE  BEST  POLICY 

STRICT  observance  of  moral  principle  is  the  natural 
condition  of  business  success.  It  would  be  indis- 
pensable if  industrial  life  were  normal.  Immorality  in 
business  would  then  be  as  fatal  to  business  success  as  im- 
morality in  society  is  to  social  standing.  Even  as  things 
are,  with  industrial  life  thoroughly  demoralized  by  ab- 
normal institutions  and  discriminating  laws,  moral  prin- 
ciple in  business  conduct  is  essential  to  business  pros- 
perity in  general,  and  to  individuals  it  is  not  without 
its  advantages.  There  is  profound  truth  in  the  maxim, 
"Honesty  is  the  best  policy."  So  vital  is  it  that  even 
thieves  are  obliged  to  recognize  it  among  themselves.  In 
normal  conditions,  with  the  currents  of  social  and  in- 
dustrial life  undisturbed  by  laws  creating  industrial  privi- 
leges and  unfairly  distributing  industrial  power,  this 
thrifty  maxim  would  be  universally  and  absolutely  true. 
But  if  the  morality  of  honesty  were  to  be  determined 
only  by  that  empirical  test,  a  great  deal  might  be  said  in 
defense  of  theft.  It  is,  indeed,  doubtful  if  the  right  or 
wrong  of  honesty  would  be  settled  yet,  were  the  issue  de- 
pendent upon  the  question  of  better  or  best,  to  be  de- 
termined experimentally.  We  should  have  great  empiri- 
cists asserting,  as  they  do  of  slavery,  tariff  protection, 
land  monopoly  and  the  like,  that  theft  is  right  or  wrong 
according  to  time,  place  and  circumstances.  The  human 
mind  is  incapable  of  grasping,  measuring,  comparing, 

49 


so  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

and  drawing  correct  moral  inferences  from  the  infinite 
complexity  of  facts  and  interests  that  would  be  involved. 
The  field  of  experiment  is  too  wide,  the  period  of  investi- 
gation required  is  too  long,  the  facts  are  too  numerous 
and  complex  and  too  often  obscure,  the  interests  are  ap- 
parently too  diverse,  the  causes  and  effects  are  too  subtle, 
to  admit  of  the  solution  experimentally  of  even  the  sim- 
plest moral  problem. 

To  persons  who  believe  in  an  omniscient  and  beneficent 
Providence  it  makes  no  difference  whether  conduct  is 
guided  by  moral  principle  or  by  really  sound  policy. 
Since  moral  principle  is  to  such  persons  only  another 
phrasing  for  divine  adjustment,  and  as  all  who  believe 
that  God  is  infinite  in  beneficence  and  perfect  in  wisdom 
must  of  necessity  believe  also  that  whatever  is  in  har- 
mony with  eternal  moral  principle  will  prove  to  be  experi- 
mentally the  best  policy,  there  can  be  to  them  no  practi- 
cal choice  between  eternal  moral  principle  and  wise  ex- 
pediency as  guides  to  social  adjustment.  The  one  guide 
as  well  as  the  other  would,  in  their  estimation,  lead  to  the 
same  goal.  But  these  persons — let  us  call  them  "theists" 
for  short — nevertheless  prefer  moral  principle  to  wise  ex- 
pediency as  the  moral  standard,  for  they  recognize  the  im- 
possibility of  distinguishing,  merely  by  means  of  experi- 
mental tests,  between  right  and  wrong  in  the  sphere  of 
morals.  They,  therefore,  cling  to  those  broad  moral  prin- 
ciples which,  so  far  at  least  as  has  been  discovered,  are 
perceived  intuitively,  as  the  eye  perceives  material  ob- 
jects. These  once  apprehended,  the  rest  is  a  simple  logi- 
cal process  of  which  any  sane  mind  is  capable.  Intui- 
tively grasping,  for  instance,  that  great  moral  axiom  upon 
which  the  legal  right  of  self-defense  is  securely  founded, 
the  axiom  that  every  man  has,  as  against  the  aggressions 


HONESTY  THE  BEST  POLICY      51 

of  every  other  man  and  of  all  other  men  combined,  the 
right  to  himself — grasping  that  axiom,  the  theist  has  pos- 
session of  the  key  to  all  moral  problems  involving  human 
rights  and  duties. 

I  call  him  a  "theist."  But  that  is  only  for  convenient 
distinction.  There  are  those  who  thus  approach  moral 
questions  from  fundamental  moral  principle  intuitively 
perceived,  who  would  disclaim  being  theists.  They  are, 
however,  properly  enough  classified  as  such,  even  though 
they  deny  a  divine  personality,  for  they  acknowledge 
moral  truth  as  absolute.  That  is  the  essence  of  theism, 
and  it  distinguishes  them  from  atheists. 

The  atheist  is  not  best  described  as  one  who  denies 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God.  Many  a  fervent  wor- 
shipper of  God  as  a  personal  being,  is  an  atheist  never- 
theless. Atheism  consists  essentially  in  the  denial  of  abso- 
lute moral  principle — in  the  assertion  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  axiom  of  moral  right,  but  that  moral  questions 
are  to  be  determined  by  considerations  of  expediency  as- 
certained by  experiment. 

Thus  defined,  atheism  has,  indeed,  but  a  slight  hold 
upon  moral  teachers  when  they  concern  themselves  with 
private  or  personal  conduct.  The  business  man  who 
should  put  sand  into  his  sugar  or  water  into  his  stock  or 
forgery  into  his  commercial  paper,  and  defend  himself 
upon  grounds  of  expediency,  would  have  to  hunt  far  and 
long  for  a  teacher  of  moral  philosophy  who  would  listen 
patiently  to  his  empirical  justification.  Of  any  personal 
delinquency  like  that,  the  teacher  of  moral  philosophy 
would  promptly  say :  "I  don't  believe  it  is  truly  expedi- 
ent, either  for  you  yourself  or  for  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity ;  but  you  need  not  put  yourself  to  the  trouble  of 
trying  to  prove  it,  for  I  regard  your  act  as  simple  rob- 


52  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

bery — as  a  mere  mask  under  cover  of  which  you  de- 
prive another,  without  his  free  consent,  of  what  by  moral 
right  belongs  to  him  and  not  to  you."  That  is  what  any 
teacher  of  moral  philosophy  would  say  of  a  case  of  indi- 
vidual turpitude.  And  he  would  be  likely  to  say  the  same 
of  a  proposition  to  abolish  some  social  institution,  upon 
the  probable  perpetuity  of  which  men  had  invested  money. 
You  might  argue  till  the  crack  of  doom  the  expediency 
of  abolishing  such  an  institution,  and  the  manifest  inex- 
pediency either  of  perpetuating  it  or  of  buying  out  its 
beneficiaries,  without  so  much  as  securing  his  attention. 
His  one  reply  would  be :  "Moral  principle  demands  that 
society  perpetuate  the  institution  or  compensate  those 
who  lose  from  its  abolition."  But  asked  about  the  moral 
right  of  society  to  maintain  institutions  which  enable  some 
men  to  prosper  upon  the  fleecings  of  others — slavery,  or 
tariff  protection,  or  land  monopoly,  for  instance — many 
a  modern  expert  in  moral  philosophy  would  promptly 
fly  the  moral  track.  He  would  then  tell  you  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  moral  right  in  social  matters,  except 
as  public  expediency  may  be  so  regarded ! 

This  theory  of  social  morals,  so  convenient  a  buttress 
for  the  indefensible  legal  fiction  of  "vested  rights" — 
which  are  either  rights  whether  "vested"  or  not,  or  being 
wrongs  gain  no  righteousness  from  being  "vested" — has 
been  thrown  up  by  that  wave  of  "scientific"  atheism 
which  gathered  volume  some  years  ago  in  the  universities 
of  Germany,  and  now,  when  it  is  said  to  be  subsiding  in 
the  place  of  its  origin,  floods  the  universities  of  England 
and  America  and  finds  an  outlet  through  our  public 
schools.  It  came  too  late  for  the  anti-slavery  agitation. 
Apologists  for  slavery,  therefore,  were  forced  to  meet 
the  slave  issue  upon  the  basis  of  the  moral  principle  of 


HONESTY  THE  BEST  POLICY       53 

human  rights.  This  they  did  sometimes  upon  the  hypothe- 
sis that  "niggers  are  not  humans,"  and  sometimes  by  the 
logic  of  tar  and  feathers.  They  had  not  yet  learned 
from  high  "scientific"  authority  to  defend  their  "peculiar 
institution"  in  respectable  moral  disorder,  with  the  athe- 
istic theory  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  right  except 
as  we  learn  from  experience  what  is  better  or  best. 

Little,  however,  as  these  "scientists"  suspect  it,  to  set 
up  better  or  best  as  a  moral  test  is  virtually  to  acknowl- 
edge what  they  regard  as  an  opposing  principle,  the 
principle  of  absolute  right.  It  is  to  imply  that  there  are 
standards  of  right  toward  which  we  ought  to  advance, 
even  though  we  can  advance  only  experimentally,  as  we 
do  toward  absolute  right  in  physics.  But  the  empirical 
cult  in  morals  make  no  such  actual  acknowledgment 
They  insist  not  merely  that  experiment  is  the  only  road 
toward  right,  but  that  its  results  from  time  to  time  are 
at  once  the  only  right  we  know  and  the  only  right  there 
is.  In  other  words,  that  by  experiment  we  are  not  feel- 
ing our  way  toward  moral  righteousness  but  are  creat- 
ing it. 

They  profess  inability  to  apprehend  absolute  right. 
That  is  their  misfortune.  Though  absolute  right  is  im- 
possible of  comprehension,  it  is  not  even  difficult  of 
apprehension.  We  all  apprehend  it  in  some  degree  when 
we  respect  another's  title,  in  any  given  circumstances,  to 
be  done  by  as  we  under  similar  circumstances  would  our- 
selves be  done  by.  Whoever  resists  temptations  to  steal, 
not  from  fear  of  disgrace  or  imprisonment  or  other  super- 
ficial penalty,  but  because  stealing  is  unjust — that  person 
has  an  apprehension  of  absolute  moral  right. 

Were  one  required  to  define  absolute  moral  right,  he 
might    describe    it    as    harmonious    adjustment    upon 


54  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

the  moral  as  distinguished  from  the  physical  plane  of  life. 
These  two  planes  are  distinct  with  reference  to  princi- 
ples of  right,  each  having  its  own  peculiar  adjustment  or 
harmony.  We  can  have  an  apprehension  of  perfect  physi- 
cal righteousness.  The  possibility  or  idea  of  physical  per- 
fection must  exist  or  it  could  not  be  approached.  Man  is 
not  a  creator ;  he  is  an  imitator.  He  does  not  design ;  he 
discovers.  But  he  imitates  or  discovers  imperfectly. 
Though  he  conceives  of  physical  exactitude,  physical  har- 
mony, physical  righteousness,  or  whatever  be  the  name  he 
adopts  for  his  recognition  of  the  absolutely  right  on  the 
physical  plane,  he  can  experimentally  only  approximate 
to  it.  And  so  it  is  on  the  moral  plane.  We  conceive  of 
moral  harmony,  moral  exactitude,  moral  righteousness, 
though  we  cannot  realize  the  ideal  experimentally. 

This  is  illustrated  in  the  maxim  already  mentioned — 
"Honesty  is  the  best  policy."  The  latter  part  of  the  maxim 
has  to  do  with  expediency,  with  a  lower  range  of  har- 
mony; but  the  first  part  carries  us  into  the  realms  of 
absolute  righteousness.  In  its  broadest  signification,  hon- 
esty is  moral  exactitude,  moral  perfection,  moral  right- 
eousness. It  is  a  standard  which  we  cannot  realize  but  to 
which  we  can  approximate.  And  the  lesson  of  the  maxim 
is  that  the  nearer  we  approximate  to  this  harmony  of 
moral  righteousness,  the  nearer  also  shall  we  approximate 
to  the  lower  harmony  of  physical  prosperity. 

It  is  a  splendid  maxim  of  idealism.  It  reverses  the 
notion  of  the  empirical  moralist,  that  whatever  is  experi- 
mentally best  is  morally  right,  and  implies  that  what- 
ever is  morally  right  will  prove  to  be  experimentally 
best. 

To  appreciate  the  great  significance  of  the  maxim,  let 
it  be  turned  upside  down,  as  the  experimentalists  are  try- 


HONESTY  THE  BEST  POLICY       55 

ing  to  do  with  moral  philosophy.  Suppose  that  instead  of 
saying,  "Honesty  is  the  best  policy,"  we  should  say,  "The 
best  policy  is  honest."  What  kind  of  morality  would  that 
inculcate? 


CHAPTER    II 

JUSTICE   OR    SACRIFICE 

EVERY  moral  relationship  is  subject  to  one  or  the 
other  of  two  great  elementary  principles — justice 
and  sacrifice.  There  is  no  exception.  In  so  far,  then,  as 
business  is  not  unethical,  it  must  conform  either  to  the 
natural  law  of  justice,  or  to  what  is  called  the  spiritual 
law  of  sacrifice.  To  the  extent  that  it  is  conducted  in 
disregard  or  defiance  of  both,  it  is  without  ethical  basis. 

Sacrifice  consists  in  giving  without  reference  to  get- 
ting. That  it  has  a  legitimate  place  in  human  affairs  is 
not  to  be  questioned.  It  certainly  has  a  legitimate  place 
when  social  conditions  are  disordered.  Some  must  then 
sacrifice,  that  order  may  be  restored.  History  is  full  of 
noble  instances.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  sacrifice  is  with- 
out its  place  in  orderly  conditions,  for  giving  without 
reference  to  getting  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  family 
life.  But  the  question  often  recurs  whether  it  ought  not 
also  to  be  characteristic  of  business  life. 

There  is  cause  for  that  question.  Though  wealth  is 
abundant,  and  wealth-producing  power  emulates  Om- 
nipotence, degrading  poverty  and  the  more  degrading 
fear  of  poverty  are  distinguishing  characteristics  of  civ- 
ilized life.  Instead  of  lifting  all  to  better  conditions  of 
opportunity,  man's  triumphs  over  the  forces  of  nature 
enormously  enrich  a  few  at  the  expense  of  the  rest. 
They  have  done  little  to  increase  the  comforts  of  the  toil- 
ing masses  even  absolutely,  but  much  to  diminish  their 
comforts    relatively;    and    industrial    liberty    they    have 

56 


JUSTICE   OR   SACRIFICE  57 

almost  destroyed.  The  gulf  between  riches  and  pov- 
erty has  not  been  filled  in ;  it  has  been  widened  and  deep- 
ened and  made  more  a  hell  than  ever.  So  dreadful  is 
the  poverty  of  our  time  felt  to  be,  that  it  has  inspired  all 
of  us  with  fear  of  it, — with  a  fear  so  terrifying  that  many 
more  good  people  than  would  like  to  acknowledge  their 
weakness  look  upon  the  exchange  of  one's  immortal  soul 
for  a  fortune  as  very  like  a  bargain.  Such  unwholesome 
circumstances  make  men  ask  of  one  another  with  grow- 
ing eagerness :    "Am  I  not  my  brother's  keeper  ?" 

Three  answers  to  the  question  may  be  heard. 

There  is  the  answer  of  Cain  as  the  slayer  of  his  brother. 
It  comes  from  those  strenuous  mortals  who,  denying 
that  their  brother  has  rights,  acknowledge  no  duties  to- 
ward him.  They  answer  promptly  and  sharply:  "No! 
I  am  not  my  brother's  keeper.  Let  him  prove  his  right 
to  survive  by  surviving.  The  law  of  the  universe  is 
neither  sacrifice  nor  justice;  it  is  power." 

Another  answer  is  in  spirit  like  the  first;  but  instead 
of  being  strenuous  it  is  hypocritical.  It  comes  from  pro- 
fessional philanthropists  and  their  parasites,  and  from 
statesmen  who  seek  conquest  in  the  name  of  humanity; 
men  who,  while  denying  that  their  brother  has  rights 
which  they  are  morally  bound  to  respect,  profess  an  obli- 
gation of  charitable  duty  toward  him.  In  oily  phrase 
they  answer:  "Yes;  I  am  my  brother's  keeper.  It  is 
my  pious  duty,  a  burden  from  which  I  must  not  shrink, 
to  do  him  good  and  regulate  his  life." 

The  third  answer,  like  the  second,  is  affirmative.  But 
it  is  not  hypocritical,  nor  is  it  inspired  by  sentiments  of 
conventional  philanthropy.  It  comes  from  devoted  men 
and  women.  Seeing  and  often  sharing  the  impoverished 
condition  of  multitudes  of  willing  workers  in  a  society 


58  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

where  wealth  abounds  and  may  be  multiplied  indefinitely, 
and  attributing  this  impoverishment  to  industrial  compe- 
tition, they  conceive  of  sacrifice  for  the  brother  as  an 
ever  present  and  normal  duty,  and  forecast  an  industrial 
regime  from  which  "unbrotherly  competition"  shall  have 
been  excluded. 

The  social  ideal  of  this  class  may  be  expressed  in 
the  familiar  though  much  abused  formula :  "From  each 
according  to  his  ability,  to  each  according  to  his  needs." 
But  this  familiar  formula  is  not  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
familiar  woodeny  way.  To  each  according  to  his  needs 
does  not  necessarily  mean  to  each  according  to  his  selfish 
desires.  It  may  just  as  well  mean,  to  each  according  to 
what  is  necessary  for  his  greatest  usefulness.  And  in 
some  form  of  phrase  or  other,  such  is  the  interpretation 
which  most  if  not  all  believers  in  the  formula  give  to  it. 
The  essential  idea  is  not  selfish  getting  but  unselfish  giv- 
ing, not  greed  but  sacrifice. 

But  that  ideal  does  not  bear  examination  any  better 
than  its  opposite.  Sacrifice  is  as  far  out  of  equilibrium  in 
one  direction  as  greed  is  in  the  other.  Not  sacrifice, 
but  justice,  is  the  law.  This  is  a  natural  law — a  law  of 
human  nature.  It  is  one  phase  of  the  general  law  which 
governs  all  human  activity,  namely,  the  law  that  men  seek 
to  satisfy  their  desires,  be  they  good  or  bad,  in  the  easiest 
known  way.  That  general  law  is  the  only  rule  whereby 
industrial  equilibrium  can  be  produced  and  maintained, 
so  long  as  the  element  of  self-interest  in  measurable  de- 
gree persists  in  the  world ;  and  competition,  if  left  natu- 
rally free,  and  not  made  jug-handled  by  legislative 
schemes  for  resisting  it,  would  maintain  this  equilibrium. 
Competition  is  truly,  as  some  one  has  expressed  it,  "God's 
law  of  cooperation  in  a  selfish  world." 


JUSTICE   OR   SACRIFICE  59 

With  competition  free,  everyone  in  normal  mental  and 
physical  health  who  produced  in  proportion  to  his  ability 
would  share  in  proportion  to  his  needs.  For  when  we 
consider  the  principle  of  the  inter-changeability  of  labor, 
no  healthy  man's  necessities  can  exceed  his  ability  to  pro- 
duce.    His  desires  may,  but  not  his  needs. 

Useless  and  luxurious  people  often  say  they  were  bom 
to  be  served,  and  under  a  self-sacrificing  regime  there 
would  be  no  way  of  telling  whether  they  might  not  be 
right.  The  queen  bee  is  useful  in  the  hive ;  why  not  they 
possibly  in  society?  But  free  competition  would  furnish 
an  infallible  test.  If  that  prevailed,  they  would  be  served 
in  the  degree  that  they  rendered  acceptable  service, 
neither  more  nor  less. 

To  reflect  at  all  upon  the  principle  of  the  inter-change- 
ability of  labor  is  to  see  that  the  relationship  of  abilities 
to  needs  is  held  in  equilibrium  by  free  competition.  While, 
for  illustration,  a  hatmaker  might  not  be  able  to  satisfy 
his  legitimate  needs  as  to  shoes  with  his  skill  in  shoemak- 
ing,  he  would  be  able  to  do  so  with  his  skill  as  a  hat- 
maker,  provided  exchange  were  unrestricted.  So  a  phil- 
osopher, a  preacher,  an  actor  or  a  teacher  might  fall 
very  far  short  of  satisfying  his  common  needs,  if  he  had 
to  make  the  needed  things  themselves;  but  if  he  were 
really  useful  to  his  brethren  in  his  own  vocation,  he 
would  have  no  difficulty  in  satisfying  those  needs  by 
exchanging  his  labor  for  theirs.  His  income  of  service 
would  be  in  proportion  to  his  expenditure  of  ability,  and 
that  is  the  industrial  equilibrium.  It  is  interference  with 
competition,  not  competition  itself,  that  unbalances  in- 
dustry and  thereby  brings  about  social  conditions  which 
give  plausibility  to  the  theory  that  we  ought  to  work  for 
one  another  regardless  of  a  return  of  work. 


6o  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

That  theory  is  fundamentally  unsound.  "He  who  will 
not  work  neither  shall  he  eat."  This  correlative  of  the 
golden  rule,  which  commands  not  sacrifice  but  recipro- 
cality,  is  good  gospel.  And  whether  we  become  our 
brother's  keeper  upon  the  philosophical  principle  of 
giving  without  getting,  or  become  so  in  the  patronizing 
spirit  of  conventional  philanthropy,  we  lead  on  to  the 
same  goal.  By  making  ourselves  our  brother's  keeper  in 
the  sense  of  relieving  him  of  his  individual  responsibili- 
ties, we  pursue  a  course  that  must  inevitably  eventuate 
in  our  invading  his  individual  liberties.  He  who  adopts 
a  policy  of  perennial  sacrifice  for  his  brother  man,  of 
sacrifice  as  a  normal  social  principle  in  contradistinction 
to  sacrifice  in  emergencies,  has  but  taken  the  first  step  in 
that  policy  of  repugnant  philanthropy  which  begins  with 
doing  our  brethren  good  and  culminates  in  tyrannically 
regulating  their  lives. 

Sacrifice  is  not  brotherhood.  There  are  circumstances 
in  which  it  is  neighborly.  There  are  emergencies  when 
it  is  noble.  Even  conventional  philanthropy  has  noble 
aspects.  Not  so,  however,  with  sacrifice  as  a  universal 
rule.  At  its  best  it  implies  a  benevolently  inverted  con- 
ception of  the  laws  of  social  life ;  at  its  worst  it  is  a  form 
of  unmixed  selfishness.  The  principle  of  sacrifice  is  not  a 
principle  of  brotherhood.  Self-love  sacrifices;  brother- 
hood is  just. 

The  story  of  Cain,  to  which  advocates  of  sacrifice  recur, 
proclaiming  as  its  moral  that  we  are  our  brother's  keeper 
— even  that  old  story,  coming  down  to  us  from  the  child- 
hood of  the  race,  coincides  with  the  golden  rule  of  the 
Nazarene  in  identifying  brotherhood  with  reciprocality, 
with  justice,  with  correlated  rights  and  duties,  and  not 
with  officious  or  sacrificial  care-taking. 


JUSTICE   OR   SACRIFICE  6i 

We  need  not  approach  the  story  of  Cain  in  supersti- 
tious or  pious  mood.  Wholly  apart  from  the  reverence 
that  imputes  a  sacred  character  to  everything  between  the 
lids  of  the  Bible,  this  story  is  worthy  of  serious  thought. 
As  with  so  many  of  the  old  stories  and  so  few  of  the 
new,  it  contains  a  share  of  elementary  truth.  This  is 
the  truth  to  which  we  have  alluded  as  of  especial  value 
in  this  era  of  agitation  against  social  maladjustments. 
The  truth  it  embodies  is  the  very  reverse  of  that  which  it 
is  often  lightly  supposed  to  teach.  The  truth  it  does 
teach  is  that  man  is  not  his  brother's  keeper. 

Disappointed  at  the  cold  reception  of  his  offering  to 
the  Lord,  and  envious  to  the  point  of  deadly  hatred  of 
the  affectionate  reception  of  his  brother  Abel's,  Cain 
murdered  his  brother.  The  Lord  knew  he  had  done  this 
murder.  Cain  knew  that  the  Lord  knew  it,  and  knew, 
too,  that  there  was  no  defense.  By  murdering  Abel  he 
had  invaded  one  of  Abel's  natural  rights — his  right  to 
live.  It  was  no  question  of  neglected  charity,  which  his 
brother  could  not  righteously  demand ;  it  was  no  question 
of  withheld  philanthropy,  to  which  his  brother  had  no 
moral  claim;  it  was  no  question  of  refusing  to  sacrifice 
himself  or  part  of  himself  for  another  to  whom  the  sacri- 
fice would  have  been  a  gift.  It  was  a  plain  case  of  wrong- 
ing his  brother  in  respect  of  a  right  which  his  brother 
could  morally  assert.  His  delinquency  had  reference  to 
no  fanciful  conception  of  duties  divorced  from  rights.  He 
had  violated  his  duty  because  and  only  because  he  had 
assailed  another's  right. 

Conscious  of  the  wickedness  of  his  crime,  Cain  resorted 
to  tactics  which  have  ever  since  been  common  with  his 
kind.    He  made  a  false  appeal  to  a  true  principle. 

'Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  he  asked  triumphantly, 


63  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

when  interrogated  with  the  question  which  implied  and 
which  he  knew  to  imply  the  Lord's  knowledge  of  his 
crime.  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  The  question 
called  for  a  negative.  None  other  could  have  been  given 
by  a  God  of  justice,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons.  Cain 
was  not  his  brother's  keeper.  Had  he  been  his  brother's 
keeper  he  must  have  been  his  brother's  master.  The 
terms  are  interchangeable.  So  at  bottom  are  the 
ideas  for  which  they  stand.  God  makes  no  man  the 
keeper  of  other  men.  Individual  freedom  is  as  plainly  a 
divine  command  as  is  walking  with  the  feet  or  eating 
with  the  mouth. 

The  law  to  which  Cain  appealed  would  have  been  his 
perfect  defense  to  any  accusation  but  injustice.  But  to 
that  accusation  it  was  not  a  defense.  Though  charged 
with  no  duties  as  the  keeper  of  his  brother,  he  was 
charged,  as  are  all  men,  with  the  duty  of  respecting  his 
brother's  rights.  It  was  because  he  had  disregarded  that 
duty  that  Cain  was  driven  forth  with  the  mark  upon  his 
brow. 

Such  is  the  lesson  which  the  Cain  and  Abel  story  has 
for  the  lords  and  masters  and  philanthropists  and  re- 
formers of  all  lands.  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?"  No ! 
With  emphasis,  No !  Not  more  than  Cain  was  of  Abel  is 
any  man  his  brother's  keeper.  But  as  upon  Cain  respect- 
ing Abel,  so  upon  every  man  respecting  every  other,  is 
laid  the  duty  of  conserving  his  brother's  rights.  There  is 
no  normal  duty  of  charity,  no  normal  duty  of  sacrifice,  no 
normal  duty  of  regulating  a  brother's  life,  no  normal  duty 
of  serving  him  without  expectation  of  fair  service  in  re- 
turn, no  normal  duty  of  any  kind  toward  any  man  except 
as  a  correlative  of  some  absolute  right  of  his.  Our 
brother  has  a  right  to  live;  therefore  it  is  our  duty  not 


JUSTICE   OR   SACRIFICE  63 

to  kill  him.  He  has  a  right  to  labor  and  accumulate  the 
products  of  his  labor  as  private  property ;  therefore,  it  is 
our  duty  to  let  him  labor  and  not  to  steal  from  him. 
And  when  these  and  kindred  rights  are  subject  to  the 
power  of  organized  society,  as  they  are  now,  it  is  our  duty 
as  best  we  can  so  to  use  our  influence  as  to  prevent  any 
injustice  through  the  operation  of  social  institutions  and 
laws,  which  it  would  be  our  duty  to  avoid  as  individuals. 

The  true  gospel  of  social  regeneration  is  this :  "I  am 
not  my  brother's  keeper ;  but  I  am  bound  to  respect  and 
conserve  my  brother's  rights."  That  is  the  gospel  that 
will  regenerate.  No  other  will.  It  is  the  gospel  of  jus- 
tice, and  justice  is  the  predominant  law  of  brotherhood, 
the  core  of  every  sound  system  of  business  life. 

By  justice  is  meant  the  adjustment  that  morally  bal- 
ances. Applied  to  business  affairs,  it  means  giving  and 
taking  upon  equal  terms — taking  as  well  as  giving.  It 
is  "quid  pro  quo" ;  and  for  every  "quid"  there  must  be  a 
quo,"  or  justice  fails — the  moral  balance  is  disturbed. 
Reduced  to  its  final  terms,  justice  in  business  means  ser- 
vice in  exchange  for  equal  service.  The  business  man 
must  render  full  service  for  the  service  he  receives,  and 
he  must  demand  full  service  for  the  service  he  renders. 
He  would  be  obviously  unjust,  were  he  to  get  without 
giving;  he  would  also  be  unjust,  were  he  to  give  without 
getting.  Justice  in  business  is  the  exchange  of  equiva- 
lents.    It  is  economic  equilibrium. 

Though  it  were  conceded  that  sacrifice  is  more  exalted 
than  justice,  nevertheless  justice  comes  first  in  the  natural 
order.  Before  any  one  can  give  he  must  own  what  he 
gives.  It  must  be  his  as  against  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 
No  one  can  give  what  is  not  his  own.  He  cannot  sacri- 
fice food  or  raiment  or  shelter  unless  he  first  earns  it  and 


64  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

owns  it.  He  must  be  able  justly  to  say  of  it,  "This  is 
mine."  If  sacrifice  be,  then,  the  fruitage  and  foliage  of 
spiritual  growth,  yet  justice  is  its  root — its  necessary 
beginning.  Social  ethics  can  no  more  rest  upon  sacrifice 
than  upon  beggary.    Social  ethics  must  rest  upon  justice. 

For  that  reason  justice  and  not  sacrifice  must  govern 
in  business.  For  business  is  at  the  root  of  social  affairs. 
Man  lives  not  for  business  but  by  business.  Business 
furnishes  him  the  material  things  he  requires  to  use,  to 
keep,  or  to  give  away.  Having  earned  these  things  in 
business,  he  is  free  to  grow  in  spiritual  grace  by  sacrific- 
ing them.  But  unless  he  first  earns  in  business  what 
he  sacrifices  for  the  good  of  his  soul  or  the  benefit  of 
his  brother,  the  sacrifice  may  prove  to  be  a  curse  to  both 
rather  than  a  blessing  to  either. 

Justice,  then,  is  the  particular  moral  principle  in  which 
business  ethics  are  founded.  Every  ethical  business  rule 
which  is  not  rooted  in  justice  is  false.  And  by  justice,  let 
it  be  remembered,  is  meant  moral  equilibrium — moral 
harmony.  It  implies  both  giving  and  getting.  The  busi- 
ness that  does  not  give  an  equivalent  in  service  for  the 
service  it  gets,  is  a  plundering  business ;  the  business  that 
does  not  get  an  equivalent  in  service  for  the  service  it 
gives,  is  a  plundered  business.  One  is  unjust  as  well  as 
the  other,  and  in  the  natural  course  of  things  either  will 
produce  disaster.  The  law  of  justice  is  as  immutable  as 
the  law  of  gravitation.  Even  men  who  seem  for  a  time  to 
flourish  upon  injustice  in  business,  sooner  or  later  fall 
victims,  in  some  way,  to  the  very  industrial  disorder  it 
creates. 

This  is  clearly  enough  seen  in  connection  with  the 
cruder  forms  of  injustice.  Few  grocers  would  expect 
in   these   days   to   prosper   by   "sanding"   their    sugar. 


JUSTICE   OR   SACRIFICE  65 

Shrewd  commercial  travelers  hesitate  now  to  overstock 
their  confiding  customers  with  goods.  The  more  primi- 
tive methods  of  injustice  in  business,  have  become  well 
nigh  obsolete.  It  is  in  subtle  ways  that  injustice  now 
dominates  business  affairs. 

Though  business  men  do  not  "sand  their  sugar,"  they 
do  seek  and  secure  privileges  under  the  law  which  enable 
them  to  exact  in  trade  more  service  than  they  give.  This 
is  the  same  as  "sanding  sugar" — both  morally  and  in  its 
inevitably  destructive  effect  upon  business.  The  one,  like 
the  other,  involves  getting  without  giving  on  one  side, 
and  giving  without  getting  on  the  other. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  business  ethics  have  a  wider 
range  than  the  counting  room.  So  they  have.  Duties  of 
citizenship  are  involved.  Since  legal  privileges  are  de- 
rived from  legislatures,  every  business  man  is  under  an 
ethical  obligation  to  throw  his  influence  into  politics  for 
the  protection  of  business  from  the  blighting  effects  of 
legislative  favors.  It  is  as  much  an  affair  of  business  to 
prevent  legalizing  privilege  as  to  prevent  "sanding  sugar," 
and  far  more  important. 

Business  ethics,  whatever  form  the  specific  rules  may 
assume,  demand  of  business  men — whether  manufactur- 
ers, storekeepers,  farmers,  workingmen,  or  what  not 
among  the  men  who  help  make  the  world's  living — 
that  they  exert  all  their  power  and  influence  to  secure  a 
reign  of  justice  in  the  whole  wide  realm  of  business. 
Upon  that  rock  business  can  be  firmly  established.  Every- 
where else  is  quicksand.  There  are  no  disorders  in  busi- 
ness, no  mysterious  disturbances  in  business,  no  booms 
with  their  succeeding  depressions,  no  strikes  and  lock- 
outs, no  undeserved  failures — there  is  nothing  of  which 
business  men  complain,  that  is  not  traceable  to  business 


66  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

methods  at  variance  with  elementary  justice.  The  only 
remedy  is  conformity  to  justice.  When  business  men 
shall  fully  and  practically  recognize  the  principle  that 
business  cannot  be  honest,  and  therefore  cannot  as  a 
whole  continue  to  prosper,  so  long  as  legalized  privileges 
enable  some  men  to  get  out  of  business  more  service  than 
they  put  in,  thereby  forcing  others  to  put  in  more  than 
they  get  out,  then  and  not  before  will  business  methods 
be  correct  and  business  life  be  wholesome. 


CHAPTER  III 

SERVICE    FOR  SERVICE 

SO  accustomed  have  men  become  to  the  association  of 
elegant  leisure  with  civilization  that  they  realize  only 
with  considerable  mental  effort  that  civilization  depends 
neither  upon  leisure  nor  a  leisure  class,  but  altogether 
upon  interchange  of  work.  Service  for  service  is  the 
condition  of  civilized  life.  It  is  this  that  gives  us  com- 
fortable shelter  and  clothing,  that  keeps  us  supplied  with 
food,  that  furnishes  us  with  all  our  implements,  and  that 
enables  us  to  accumulate  knowledge  and  diversify  skill. 

Should  we  altogether  cease  serving  one  another,  civil- 
ization would  quickly  collapse.  Though  men  may  live 
without  serving,  it  is  only  through  some  degree  of  inter- 
change of  service  that  they  can  live  civilized  lives.  The 
less  intense  and  just  this  interchange,  the  lower  the  grade 
of  civilization ;  the  more  perfect  the  interchange,  both  in 
its  economic  and  its  moral  qualities,  the  higher  the  civil- 
ization it  will  generate  and  maintain.  Service  for  service 
— in  other  words,  wholesome  business — is  the  central  law 
of  social  development. 

In  the  civilized  state  with  which  we  of  this  generation 
are  acquainted,  most  exchanges  of  service  take  the  form 
of  exchanges  of  substantial  objects  which  have  been 
shaped  by  human  art — by  work.  Some  exchanges  are, 
indeed,  of  work  itself.  Barbers,  physicians,  teachers, 
some  classes  of  household  servants,  actors,  lawyers,  and 
so  on,  do  not  shape  substantial  objects  and  trade  them; 

67 


68  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

they  render  direct  personal  service.    But  most  exchanges 
of  service  take  the  form  of  exchanges  of  artificial  objects. 

Exchanges  of  these  objects,  however,  depend  upon 
the  principle  of  service  for  service.  The  objects  are  con- 
gealed or  crystallized  service.  A  familiar  type  is  bread. 
By  no  immediate  service  alone  could  anyone  furnish  us 
with  bread.  The  field  must  first  be  plowed  and  seeded,  the 
mill  must  first  be  made  and  managed,  and  the  flour  must 
be  baked  in  an  oven  that  must  first  be  built.  When  bread 
comes  to  the  table,  therefore,  it  is  an  embodiment  of  all 
the  different  kinds  of  service  which  have  brought  it  there ; 
from  that  of  the  farmer  to  that  of  the  baker,  from  that 
of  the  miner  and  machinist  to  that  of  the  transporter. 
And  as  with  bread,  so  with  all  artificial  things  in  the  way 
of  food,  clothing,  shelter,  luxuries,  and  the  artificial  mate- 
rials and  machinery  for  producing  them.  They  are 
products  of  labor,  and  in  exchanging  them  we  are  essen- 
tially exchangnig  service  for  service,  work  for  work. 

Hardly  less  evanescent,  nevertheless,  are  these  things 
than  direct  personal  service.  Some  kinds  of  artificial  ob- 
jects thus  embodying  service  are  quickly  consumed,  and 
even  those  that  are  lasting  last  but  a  little  while — a  month 
or  two,  a  year  or  two,  or  possibly  a  generation  or  two. 
Though  we  often  speak  of  saving,  such  things  cannot  be 
saved.  The  civilization  of  to-day  rests  not  upon  the 
saved-up  products  of  earlier  generations,  but  upon  inter- 
changes of  service  in  this  generation,  and  to  a  great  de- 
gree in  this  year,  or  month,  or  week,  or  day. 

It  is  often  explained  that  the  idle  rich  are  living  upon 
the  accumulated  savings  of  their  ancestors.  They  live 
upon  nothing  of  the  kind.  Imagine  a  rich  young  man 
as  breakfasting  upon  toast  which  his  great-great-grand- 
mother had  made,  and  eggs  that  his  great-great-grand- 


SERVICE   FOR   SERVICE  69 

father  had  saved  up  I  So  far  from  his  doing  that,  the 
toast  and  eggs  he  eats  are  those  which  some  of  his  own 
fellow  inhabitants  of  this  planet  have  caused  to  come  to 
him  at  this  very  time.  Some  of  his  brethren  have  ren- 
dered him  a  service  by  working  for  him,  and  if  he  renders 
in  exchange  no  equivalent  service  for  others  with  his  own 
work,  then,  somewhere,  sometime,  in  the  complex  circles 
of  exchange,  some  one  has  to  that  extent  given  service 
for  which  he  has  not  received  service. 

Service  cannot  be  saved.  Even  when  congealed  in 
consumable  things,  it  can  be  saved  for  only  a  little  while. 
Society  as  a  whole  lives  almost  literally  from  hand  to 
mouth.  The  work  that  is  done  to-day  serves  the  wants 
of  to-day.    We  cannot  save  it  for  future  generations. 

But  individuals  can  and  do  save  obligations  to  work. 
And  this  is  what  is  really  meant  by  saving  wealth.  Nor 
is  fuch  saving  necessarily  incompatible  with  the  principle 
of  service  for  service.  If  a  farmer,  for  example,  works 
a  day  for  his  neighbor  in  corn-planting  time,  with  an  un- 
derstanding that  the  neighbor  is  to  help  him  in  harvest, 
he  will  in  effect  have  saved  a  day's  service  from  corn- 
planting  time  till  harvest  time.  Or  if  a  farmer  delivers 
100  bushels  of  grain  to  the  storekeeper  upon  an  agree- 
ment that  he  shall  have  its  equivalent  in  dry  goods  upon 
demand,  and  he  does  not  demand  them  for  a  year,  he 
will  in  effect  have  saved  the  dry  goods.  Suppose,  how- 
ever, that  instead  of  giving  the  farmer  credit  for  his 
wheat  the  storekeeper  pays  him  money  for  it,  and  that 
the  farmer  does  not  spend  that  money  until  the  next  year ; 
then  the  farmer  will  in  effect  have  saved  the  things  he 
ultimately  buys.  But  the  storekeeper,  instead  of  giving 
either  credit  or  money,  may  give  the  farmer  his  note  pay- 
able in  a  year,  and  by  mutual  agreement  this  note  may 


70  ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

be  renewed  from  year  to  year,  until  the  farmer  dies,  leav- 
ing it  to  his  son;  and  after  successive  renewals  it  may 
come  to  his  grandson,  to  whom  finally  it  is  paid  with 
money  and  the  money  used  to  hire  a  cook  to  toast  bread 
and  boil  eggs.  The  principle  will  be  the  same.  The  serv- 
ice or  goods  so  procured  will  in  effect  have  been  saved 
up  through  those  three  generations,  though  in  fact  the 
cook  was  not  bom  until  after  the  wheat  for  which  the 
note  was  given  had  been  consumed,  nor  the  eggs  laid 
until  the  day  before  they  were  served.  In  all  these  in- 
stances there  is  an  exchange  of  service  for  service. 

The  fact  that  the  service  in  one  direction  was  rendered 
long  before  the  service  in  the  other,  makes  no  difference. 
So  long  as  all  the  processes  of  the  transaction  are  volun- 
tary on  the  part  of  all  parties  concerned,  it  is  immaterial 
whether  or  not  the  interchange  is  concurrent.  The  essen- 
tial thing  is  that  when  a  service  is  rendered  it  shall  be  in 
exchange  for  an  equivalent  service,  whether  the  equiva- 
lent service  be  rendered  concurrently,  or  has  been  ren- 
dered in  the  past,  or  is  to  be  rendered  in  the  future.  This 
is  what  constitutes  service  for  service. 

If  all  obligations  to  serve  represented  service  rendered 
or  to  be  rendered,  there  would  be  no  volcanic  rumblings 
in  the  development  of  civilization.  No  one  could  then 
complain  of  unmerited  poverty,  nor  would  any  be  un- 
deservedly rich.  For  if  each  rendered  service  only  as  he 
received  or  had  received  or  was  to  receive  an  equivalent 
in  service,  suffering  from  poverty  would  imply  voluntary 
idleness,  and  the  possession  of  great  wealth  would  imply 
great  industry  and  usefulness.  It  is  an  indisputable  truth, 
however,  that  most  of  the  obligations  to  serve  which  con- 
stitute the  so-called  wealth  of  the  leisure  classes  represent 
neither  service  rendered  nor  to  be  rendered  by  the  posses- 
sors, but  only  power  acquired. 


SERVICE   FOR  SERVICE  71 

To  illustrate  this  side  of  the  matter,  let  us  suppose  a 
ten-dollar  bill  extorted  by  a  highwayman  from  a  work- 
ingman  whose  wages  it  is.  The  workingman  had  ren- 
dered service,  and  this  bill  was  his  certificate  of  title  to 
receive  service  in  return.  But  now  he  loses  the  power  to 
demand  that  service.  The  robber  has  acquired  it.  So  the 
workingman  will  have  rendered  ten  dollars'  worth  of 
service  without  getting  any  service,  and  the  robber  will 
have  gained  ten  dollars'  worth  of  service  without  render- 
ing any. 

In  that  case  the  workingman  is  plundered  in  defiance 
of  law.  But  there  would  be  no  essential  difference  if  the 
law  justified  the  act.  There  are  instances  in  which  the 
law  does  justify  precisely  such  acts.  The  institution  of 
slavery  is  one.  A  master's  title  to  his  slave  is  an  obliga- 
tion upon  the  slave  to  serve.  He  must  serve  as  his  mas- 
ter orders.  The  law  compels  him  to.  Yet  he  never  has 
received  and  never  is  to  receive  equivalent  service  in 
return.  As  with  the  robbed  workingman,  the  slave  must 
render  service  without  getting  service,  while  his  master 
gets  service  without  rendering  any.  The  principle  of 
service  for  service  is  ignored.  It  is  the  same,  though  the 
process  is  more  subtle,  when  private  monopolies  are 
carved  out  of  public  functions.  When,  for  instance,  the 
streets  of  a  city  are  turned  over  to  private  corporations 
for  street  car  purposes,  and  the  corporations  charge  for 
fares  more  than  could  be  exacted  for  the  same  service 
in  competitive  conditions,  the  excess  is  upon  a  footing 
precisely  with  the  ten  dollars  extorted  from  the  work- 
ingman in  defiance  of  law,  and  with  the  labor  extorted 
from  the  slave  pursuant  to  law.  To  the  extent  of  that 
excess  the  passengers  are  forced  to  render  service  with- 
out getting  service,  and  the  corporations  get  service  with- 
out rendering  any. 


72  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

The  most  universal  method,  however,  as  it  is  the  funda- 
mental one,  of  getting  service  without  giving  service, 
through  the  enforcement  of  legal  obligations  to  serve, 
is  that  of  land  monopoly.  This  method  operates  to  effect 
the  result  in  two  ways :  First,  by  extorting  private  com- 
pensation for  the  enjoyment  of  a  common  right ;  secondly, 
by  abnormally  lessening  opportunities  to  use  land,  and 
thereby  abnormally  reducing  the  price  of  service. 

All  incomes  from  land — not  from  its  use,  but  from  the 
mere  power  of  forbidding  its  use — are  unearned.  That 
is,  they  consist  of  services  rendered  by  others  for  which 
no  service  is  rendered  in  return.  For  no  man  can  render 
his  fellow  man  a  service  by  "allowing"  him  to  use  land, 
any  more  than  he  can  render  him  a  service  by  "allowing" 
him  to  breathe.  There  is  no  service  in  either  case  unless 
it  has  been  preceded  by  a  commensurate  injury.  If  an 
enemy  grabs  my  throat  and  chokes  me,  he  may  indeed  do 
me  a  service  by  then  "allowing"  me  to  breathe.  But  if 
he  had  in  the  first  place  respected  my  natural  right  to 
breathe,  there  would  have  been  no  need  for  his  permis- 
sion. To  call  such  permission  a  service  is  to  wrench  lan- 
guage and  trifle  with  thought.  The  same  remark  is  true 
of  the  "service"  of  allowing  men  to  use  land,  to  which  all 
men's  rights  are  equal  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  morality 
in  the  universe.  It  is  only  by  previously  divesting  men 
of  their  natural  right  to  land  that  they  can  ever  be  made 
to  feel  that  permission  to  use  land  is  a  service.  The 
principle  of  service  for  service  demands  that  service  by 
work  shall  be  repaid  with  service  by  work.  Nothing  else 
satisfies  it.  Consequently  rent  exactions  for  private  bene- 
fit as  compensation  for  permission  to  use  land  are  hostile 
to  this  principle.  They  enable  the  beneficiaries  to  that 
extent  to  get  service  without  giving  any,  and  therefore 


SERVICE    FOR   SERVICE  73 

compel  others  to  give  service  to  the  same  extent  without 
getting  any. 

The  system  of  land  monopoly  which  thus  enables  land 
monopolists  to  get  service  without  giving  service,  produces 
the  secondary  effect  noted  above — the  effect,  that  is,  of  ab- 
normally lessening  opportunities  to  use  land,  and  there- 
by abnormally  reducing  the  price  of  service.  This  effect 
is  infinitely  more  subtle  and  vastly  more  oppressive  than 
the  first,  which  consists  merely  in  extorting  private  com- 
pensation for  a  common  right ;  but  upon  a  little  reflection 
it  will  be  apprehended.  Through  occasional  phenomenal 
rises  of  some  land  in  rent-yielding  qualities,  whereby 
some  families  have  become  very  rich — acquiring  thereby 
great  power  to  exact  service  without  rendering  any — a 
craze  for  buying  land  and  holding  it  for  a  rise  has  be- 
come chronic,  in  consequence  of  which  the  whole  earth, 
though  but  slightly  used,  is  almost  completely  monopo- 
lized. One  result  of  this  is  to  set  the  service-rendering 
elements  of  society  into  deadly  competition  with  one  an- 
other for  opportunities  to  use  the  earth  in  rendering  serv- 
ice. For  use  of  the  earth  is  necessary  in  all  occupations. 
A  city  storekeeper,  for  example,  requires  more  land  for 
his  business  than  a  country  farmer  does  for  his — meas- 
uring the  land  by  value.  The  inevitable  effect  of  that 
competition  has  been  to  reduce  the  value  of  service,  as 
compared  with  the  value  of  opportunities  to  render  serv- 
ice, until  those  who  render  it  must  invariably  give  more 
service  than  they  receive.  So  the  principle  of  service  for 
service  in  society  is  turned  topsy-turvy. 

The  two  kinds  of  obligation  to  serve  which  I  have 
thus  attempted  to  distinguish — those  that  represent  serv- 
ice and  those  that  extort  it — are  commonly  confused  by 
the  habit  of  speaking  of  all  interchange  or  rendering  of 


74  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

service  in  terms  of  money.  It  is  by  money,  that  is,  that 
we  measure  service,  whether  we  measure  it  for  purposes 
of  exchange  or  for  purposes  of  extortion.  If  we  hire  a 
man  to  work  for  us,  or  buy  a  consignment  of  goods,  we 
fix  the  value  in  terms  of  dollars.  We  do  the  same  if  we 
buy  a  lot  of  land  to  hold  for  a  rise  or  buy  a  slave  to  do 
our  work.  Yet  in  the  one  case  the  expression  in  dollars 
means  that  we  are  arranging  to  exchange  service  for 
service ;  whereas  in  the  other  it  means  that  we  are  arrang- 
ing to  exchange  a  power  of  extorting  service.  The  moral 
nature  of  the  transactions  is  confused  by  the  commercial 
terms  in  which  both  are  expressed. 

There  arises,  therefore,  a  feeling  that  money  itself  is 
in  some  sense  an  unholy  thing.  In  some  churches,  for 
instance,  collections  are  not  taken  up  because  the  jingle 
of  money  in  church  is  felt  to  be  offensive.  And  in  many 
churches  where  collections  are  taken,  they  are  regarded 
as  unavoidable  evils;  a  sense  of  incongruity  is  often  felt 
and  sometimes  expressed.  Yet  there  should  be  no  such 
feeling  regarding  money  that  has  been  earned  by  serv- 
ice. To  drop  such  money  into  the  contribution  box  of 
any  society  is  to  say:  "I  have  done  this  much  work 
for  this  cause  and  here  is  the  certificate."  But  so  much 
of  the  money  that  goes  into  contribution  boxes  represents 
not  service  for  the  cause,  but  extortion  for  the  cause,  that 
it  is  little  wonder  a  sense  of  incongruity  between  money 
boxes  and  church  worship  is  felt  and  expressed  both 
within  and  witliout  the  churches. 

Such  is  the  kind  of  money  that  people  would  get  were 
their  wishes  granted  when  they  wish  to  be  rich.  To  wish 
to  be  rich  is  to  wish  to  be  able  to  get  service  without 
giving  service.  It  is  therefore  the  most  selfish  possible 
wish.    Yet  it  is  often  made  in  what  purports  to  be  a  phil- 


SERVICE   FOR   SERVICE  75 

anthropic  spirit.  We  sometimes  wish  we  might  be  rich 
so  that  we  could  lighten  the  burdens  of  the  poor.  But 
why  not  wish  that  the  poor  might  be  rich  so  that  they 
could  lighten  their  own  burdens  ?  Zangwill's  Jew  under- 
stood this  thing  to  a  nicety.  After  praying  the  Lord  to 
give  him  $100,000,  upon  his  promise  to  distribute  $50,000 
of  it  among  the  poor,  he  added:  "But,  Lord,  if  you 
can't  trust  me,  then  give  me  $50,000,  and  distribute  the 
other  $50,000  among  the  poor  yourself."  It  all  comes 
back  to  the  original  proposition  that  obligations  to  serve 
are  essentially  of  two  kinds :  those  which  certify  to  ex- 
change of  service,  and  those  which  certify  to  a  legal 
power  of  extorting  service.  This  distinction  must  always 
be  kept  clear. 

Of  the  justice  of  the  former  species  of  obligation  there 
can  be  no  question.  When  men  freely  contract  for  an 
exchange  of  service,  whether  in  the  form  of  direct  per- 
sonal service  or  of  substantial  products  of  labor,  or  partly 
in  one  and  partly  in  the  other,  the  obligation  of  him  who 
gets  service  to  return  its  equivalent  is  a  moral  obligation. 
But  the  obligation  which  represents  power  to  extort  serv- 
ice without  certifying  to  the  rendering  of  service  is  im- 
moral and  must  be  condemned.  If  one  gets  without 
working,  others  must  work  without  getting;  and  that  is 
something  which  no  school  of  ethics  can  frankly  ap- 
prove.    It  is  essentially  robbery. 

The  Bible  also  condemns  it.  That  venerable  volume 
commands  us  not  to  steal.  It  admonishes  us,  further- 
more, to  do  to  others  as  we  would  have  them  do  to  us, 
and  to  love  our  neighbors  as  ourselves — neither  more  nor 
less,  but  the  same.  And  in  it  we  are  distinctly  told  that 
he  who  will  not  work  shall  not  eat,  a  text  which  is  fre- 
quently enough   quoted  against  parasitical   tramps   but 


76  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

seldom  against  parasitical  millionaires.  In  fact  the  Bible 
is  replete  with  condemnations  of  extortion  of  service. 
In  this  way  only  are  its  otherwise  incomprehensible  con- 
demnations of  the  rich  to  be  explained.  For  the  rich,  in 
the  opprobrious  sense,  are  not  those  who  have  much  in 
the  way  of  obligations  requiring  others  to  serve  in  ex- 
change for  service  rendered,  but  those  who  have  anything 
in  the  way  of  obligations  to  serve  which  do  not  represent 
service  rendered. 

As  Henry  George  says:*  "Is  there  not  a  natural 
or  normal  line  of  the  possession  or  enjoyment  of  serv- 
ice? Clearly  there  is.  It  is  that  of  equality  between 
giving  and  receiving.  .  .  .  He  who  can  command  more 
service  than  he  need  render,  is  rich.  He  is  poor,  who 
can  command  less  service  than  he  does  render  or  is 
willing  to  render;  for  in  our  civilization  of  to-day  we 
must  take  note  of  the  monstrous  fact  that  men  willing  to 
work  cannot  always  find  opportunity  to  work.  The  one 
has  more  than  he  ought  to  have;  the  other  has  less. 
Rich  and  poor  are  thus  correlatives  of  each  other;  the 
existence  of  a  class  of  rich  involving  the  existence  of 
a  class  of  poor,  and  the  reverse;  and  abnormal  luxury 
on  the  one  side  and  abnormal  want  on  the  other  have 
a  relation  of  necessary  sequence.  To  put  this  relation 
into  terms  of  morals,  the  rich  are  the  robbers,  since 
they  are  at  least  sharers  in  the  proceeds  of  robbery; 
and  the  poor  are  the  robbed.  This  is  the  reason,  I  take 
it,  why  Christ,  who  was  not  really  a  man  of  such  reck- 
less speech  as  some  Christians  deem  him  to  have  been, 
always  expressed  sympathy  with  the  poor  and  repug- 
nance of  the  rich.  In  his  philosophy  it  was  better  even 
to  be  robbed  than  to  rob.    In  the  kingdom  of  right-doing 

*  "Science  of  Political  Economy,"  Book  II,  Ch.  XIX. 


SERVICE   FOR   SERVICE  77 

which  he  preached,  rich  and  poor  would  be  impossible, 
because  rich  and  poor  in  the  true  sense  are  the  results  of 
wrong-doing.  .  .  .  Injustice  cannot  Hve  where  justice 
rules,  and  even  if  the  man  himself  might  get  through, 
his  riches — his  power  of  compelling  service  without  ren- 
dering service — must  of  necessity  be  left  behind.  If 
there  can  be  no  poor  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  clearly 
there  can  be  no  rich!  And  so  it  is  utterly  impossible  in 
this,  or  in  any  other  conceivable  world,  to  abolish  unjust 
poverty,  without  at  the  same  time  abolishing  unjust  pos- 
sessions. This  is  a  hard  word  to  the  softly  amiable  phil- 
anthropists who,  to  speak  metaphorically,  would  like  to 
get  on  the  good  side  of  God  without  angering  the  devil. 
But  it  is  a  true  word  nevertheless." 

Verily  it  is  a  true  word.  If  the  extortion  of  service  is  to 
be  abolished  and  the  world  left  free  to  exchange  service 
for  service,  then  those  obligations  to  serve  which  repre- 
sent naked  legal  power  and  not  service  rendered,  must  be 
unconditionally  abolished.  To  pay  their  beneficiaries  for 
their  loss  of  extorting  power  would  be  merely  to  substi- 
tute one  form  of  extortion  for  another.  Whoever  is  rich 
because  he  possesses  legal  power  to  compel  the  rendering 
of  service  without  rendering  or  having  rendered  therefor 
an  equivalent  service,  must  in  justice  lose  that  power. 
So  long  as  he  retains  it  the  natural  law  of  service  for 
service  cannot  operate.  It  is  only  by  his  losing  his  power 
to  extort  service  that  others  can  be  restored  to  their  right 
to  exchange  service. 

And  this  restoration  is  necessary,  not  only  in  fairness 
to  the  wronged,  but  for  the  general  good.  As  Ruskin 
said  in  his  lecture  on  "Work,"  "the  first  necessity  of  so- 
cial life  is  the  clearness  of  the  national  conscience  in  en- 
forcing the  law  that  he  should  keep   who  has   justly 


78  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

earned" ;  a  law,  he  added,  and  as  George  more  fully  ex- 
plains, which  "is  the  proper  distinction  between  rich 
and  poor." 


CHAPTER  IV 

GREAT    FORTUNES 

NO  very  great  fortune  is  just.  This  remark  does  not 
refer  to  tainted  fortunes  alone.  It  refers  also  to 
those  that  are  morally  clean,  so  far  as  any  act  of  the  pos- 
sessor is  concerned.  The  allusion  is  to  the  character  of 
the  fortune,  not  to  the  character  of  its  possessor.  Specif- 
ically it  is  an  allusion  to  the  fact,  and  fact  it  is,  that  no 
great  fortune  can  be  accumulated  or  perpetuated  by  any 
man  without  his  thereby  contributing,  however  uninten- 
tionally or  unconsciously,  to  the  continuous  impoverish- 
ment of  other  men.  For  great  fortunes  consist  chiefly  of 
the  market  value  of  legal  powers  of  extortion. 

These  fortunes  certainly  do  not  consist  of  money. 
When  men  speak  of  great  accumulations  of  money, 
they  speak  in  metaphor.  Neither  do  such  fortunes  con- 
sist of  existing  wealth.  By  wealth  is  literally  meant 
things  drawn  forth  from  natural  sources  by  labor — ^that 
is  to  say,  things  of  which  the  substance  is  natural,  the 
shape  or  location  or  both  being  artificial.  Of  that  class 
are  clothing,  buildings,  food,  ornaments,  and  all  the  great 
variety  of  objects  which  human  art  produces  for 
the  satisfaction  of  human  desires.  Those  things,  actually 
existent,  go  in  only  comparatively  slight  degree  to  make 
up  great  fortunes.  When,  therefore,  men  speak  of  great 
accumulations  of  wealth,  they  also  speak  in  metaphor. 
What  they  mean  is  accumulations,  not  of  existent  wealth 
produced  in  the  past,  but  of  legal  power  to  command 

79 


8o  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

possession  of  wealth  as  others  bring  it  into  existence  in 
the  present  and  future. 

Deprive  the  richest  man  of  all  his  fortune  except  his 
actual  tangible  wealth,  his  existing  labor  products,  and 
by  comparison  he  would  have  but  little  left.  Nor  would 
he  have  that  little  long,  if  he  were  wholly  divested  of 
his  powers  of  exacting  labor  from  others  without  expend- 
ing his  own  labor  in  exchange.  His  accumulated  labor 
products  would  soon  go  back  to  external  nature  whence 
they  came.  Great  fortunes  consist  then  for  the  most 
part,  not  of  the  completed  products  of  past  labor,  nor 
of  money,  but  of  legal  powers  to  exact  tribute  from  pres- 
ent and  future  labor. 

These  powers  may,  indeed,  be  entirely  honest  and  just. 
This  is  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  but  a  further 
word  here  will  be  pardoned,  even  if  it  seem  to  be  a  repe- 
tition. If,  for  example,  in  exchange  for  work  done  by 
him  to-day,  a  man  receives  evidence  of  authority  to  exact 
an  equivalent  in  work  at  any  time  in  the  future,  his  ex- 
action of  that  equivalent  at  his  own  pleasure  will  be 
honest  and  just.  Such  is  the  nature  of  a  transaction  in 
which  money  is  paid  for  work.  The  money  is  evidence 
of  just  authority  to  exact  future  work.  It  would  be  the 
same  in  principle  if  for  present  work  a  promissory  note, 
or  bond,  or  other  personal  obligation  to  do  work  in  the 
future  were  given.  In  all  such  instances  the  transaction 
is  at  bottom  an  exchange  of  present  work  for  future 
work.  If  great  fortunes  could  be  made  up  of  powers 
over  future  labor  like  these,  then  great  fortunes  could  be 
honest  and  just. 

In  fact,  however,  great  fortunes  consist  chiefly  of  pow- 
ers of  a  very  different  kind  over  future  labor.  The  Lon- 
don Spectator  once  furnished  an  instance  when  it  con- 


GREAT   FORTUNES  8i 

demned  the  process,  "well  known  in  America,  of  'freez- 
ing out'  "  It  gingerly  hinted  at  still  another  such  power, 
the  primary  one  of  all,  when  it  insisted  that  it  is  possible 
for  some  people  to  have  more  of  anything  without  others 
having  less — "except  land."  By  means  of  such  powers 
over  future  labor  the  wealth-producing  persons  in  human 
society  are  forced  to  part  with  portions  of  their  wealth, 
as  they  produce  it,  to  non-producing  persons.  They  are 
compelled  to  give  up  not  merely  of  what  they  have  pro- 
duced in  the  past,  but  also  of  what  they  produce  now; 
and  they  are  forced  to  look  forward  to  a  continuing  pay- 
ment of  tribute  upon  all  that  they  shall  produce. 

Analyzed  to  the  last,  these  powers  are  nothing  but 
powers  of  taxation  for  private  purposes.  Whatever  any 
one  gets  by  foresight,  ingenuity,  skill,  industry,  patience, 
determination,  or  any  other  quality  so  applied  as  not  to 
add  to  the  aggregate  wealth  or  to  increase  in  some  way 
the  aggregate  comfort,  he  gets  at  the  expense  of  others. 
It  is  a  private  tax.  What  he  gains  they  must  lose. 
And  although  he  be  individually  honest,  the  laws,  cus- 
toms or  institutions  that  enable  him  to  thrive  in  leisure 
upon  their  earnings,  are  predatory  and  therefore  in 
morals  criminal. 

Granted  that  anybody  can  get  rich  if  he  tries.  Granted 
that  nothing  is  needed  but  foresight,  ingenuity,  skill,  in- 
dustry, patience  and  determination.  Granted  that  every- 
body possesses  or  can  develop  those  qualities  to  the  nec- 
essary extent.  Granted  that  opportunities  are  abundant 
for  turning  them  to  account.  Granted,  in  a  word,  that 
what  he  asserts  who  insists  that  getting  rich  is  only  a 
matter  of  the  will,  is  true.  Grant  it  all,  and  still  a  ques- 
tion remains  which  impeaches  the  righteousness  of  every 
great  fortune  and  throws  a  doubt  upon  the  deservedness 


82  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

of  poverty  even  in  extreme  cases  like  those  of  the  tramp. 
It  is  the  crucial  question  by  which  our  religion,  our 
morals,  our  civilization,  are  to  be  tried.  It  is  the  test 
question  of  our  social  system,  and  these  are  its  terms: 
Can  anybody  get  rich,  under  existing  industrial  condi- 
tions, without  thereby  helping  to  make  others  poor? 

There  is  but  one  answer  and  that  is.  No ! 

The  great  fortune  that  rests  chiefly  upon  powers  of  tax- 
ation for  private  purposes,  cannot  be  honest  or  just  or  fair 
in  any  other  than  a  bare  legal  or  conventional  sense.  The 
annual  unearned  income  of  wealth  which  it  brings  to  its 
possessor  must  necessarily  involve  a  correspondingly  un- 
requited outgo  to  wealth  producers.  Since  this  Croesus 
does  not  earn  the  wealth  he  annually  exacts  from  current 
production,  but  takes  it  by  virtue  of  legal  powers  that  are 
in  their  nature  powers  of  private  taxation,  his  gain  can  be 
balanced  off  only  against  others'  loss.  It  is  absolutely 
true,  therefore,  that  as  he  has  so  much,  others  must  have 
less.  It  is  even  worse.  Not  only  do  the  others  have  less 
in  comparison  with  what  he  has,  but  they  have  less  in 
comparison  with  what  they  actually  earn. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  possessors  of  fortunes  so 
founded  are  themselves  dishonest  or  unjust.  If  they 
conform  to  the  conventional  moralities  of  money  getting, 
they  cannot  be  charged  with  personal  dishonesty. 
The  dishonesty  in  such  cases  is  social,  not  individual. 
Against  them  the  indictment  that  lies  is  not  that  they 
are  despoiling  their  brethren,  but  that  they  do  not  use 
their  influence  to  put  an  end  to  the  industrial  disorder 
which  does  despoil  their  brethren. 

It  may  be  true  enough  that  great  millionaires  are 
strictly  honest  in  all  their  personal  transactions.  At  any 
rate  that  may  be  cheerfully  conceded.    But  upon  exam- 


GREAT   FORTUNES  83 

ination  it  will  be  found  that  their  fortunes  consist  of 
some  great  taxing  power.  Such  a  fortune  has  no  moral 
basis,  even  if  acquired  by  what  may  be  called  fair  means 
and  what  by  custom  really  is  fair  means.  Though  the 
beneficiaries  of  these  unearned  incomes  be  exonerated 
from  moral  responsibility  for  taking  them,  since  there 
IS  no  individual  way  of  determining  the  true  ownership, 
they  are  not  excusable  for  buttressing  the  system  of  ex- 
tortion which  creates  unearned  incomes,  nor  even  for 
being  indifferent  to  efforts  to  reform  it.  Neither  can  they 
shelter  themselves  from  moral  responsibility  by  managing 
their  unearned  incomes  for  benevolent  purposes,  while 
ignoring  the  momentous  moral  fact  that  the  incomes  are 
unearned. 

Logically  false  and  morally  unsound — certainly  as  a 
social  theory — is  the  conclusion  that  conventionally  fair 
accumulations  of  fortunes  do  not  involve  direct  moral  re- 
sponsibility, but  that  the  uses  to  which  such  accumulations 
are  put  do.  Let  society  recognize  the  moral  necessity  of 
abolishing  powers  of  private  taxation,  to  the  end  that  all 
fortunes  m.ay  consist  of  the  possessor's  earnings  in  place 
of  his  powers  of  levying  tribute  upon  current  industry, 
and  we  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  the  uses  to 
which  men  put  their  fortunes,  provided  they  are  not 
criminal  uses.  This  is  their  business  and  not  ours.  In 
social  as  in  individual  ethics,  the  question  of  just  acquisi- 
tion precedes  all  questions  of  expenditure,  benevolent  or 
otherwise. 


PART     FOUR 


ECONOMIC    TENDENCIES 


A  great  change  is  going  on  all  over  the  civilized  world  similar 
to  that  infeudation  which,  in  Europe,  during  the  rise  of  the 
feudal  system,  converted  free  proprietors  into  vassals,  and 
brought  all  society  into  subordination  to  a  hierarchy  of  wealth 
and  privilege.  Whether  the  new  aristocracy  is  hereditary  or  not 
makes  little  difference.  Chance  alone  may  determine  who  will 
get  the  few  prizes  of  a  lottery.  But  it  is  not  the  less  certain  that 
the  vast  majority  of  all  who  take  part  in  it  must  draw  blanks. 
The  forces  of  the  new  era  have  not  yet  had  time  to  make  status 
hereditary,  but  we  may  clearly  see  that  when  the  industrial 
organization  compels  a  thousand  workmen  to  take  service  under 
one  master,  the  proportion  of  masters  to  men  will  be  but  as  one 
to  a  thousand,  though  the  one  may  come  from  the  ranks  of  the 
thousand.  "Master" !  We  don't  like  the  word.  It  is  not  Ameri- 
can I  But  what  is  the  use  of  objecting  to  the  word  when  we  have 
the  thing? 

— Henry  George,  in  "Social  Problems,"  Ch.  V. 


86 


CHAPTER  I 

DEPARTMENT  STORES 

WHEN  men  specialize  their  work,  each  making  only 
part  of  the  things  he  needs,  exchange  is  absolutely 
necessary.  If  one  man,  who  wants  food,  clothing  and 
shelter,  devote  himself  wholly  to  food-making,  depend- 
ing upon  others  for  his  clothing  and  shelter,  the  only 
way  in  which  he  can  obtain  clothing  and  shelter  is  by 
offering  his  surplus  food  in  exchange  for  them.  Inas- 
much, then,  as  in  civilized  countries  all  work  is  special- 
ized, each  man  making  only  one — indeed,  only  a  small 
part  of  one  of  the  many  things  he  wants — exchange  is 
necessarily  a  universal  phenomenon  of  civilized  life.  We 
all  live  through  trading.  But  the  natural  conditions  of 
trading  do  not  permit  each  maker  of  one  thing  or  part 
of  one  thing  to  trade  his  product  directly  with  the  makers 
of  the  products  he  desires.  This  is  prevented  by  a  great 
variety  of  obstructions.  Not  least  effective  among  them 
is  the  impossibility  of  any  one  man's  having  a  sufficiently 
extensive  personal  acquaintance.  Various  devices  are 
therefore  invented  to  facilitate  trading,  and  chief  among 
them  is  storekeeping. 

The  storekeeper  makes  a  business  of  collecting  at  one 
point  in  a  neighborhood  all  the  different  kinds  of  things, 
wherever  in  the  world  they  may  be  made,  that  are  ordi- 
narily required  by  the  people  of  that  neighborhood.  He 
collects  these  things  at  that  point,  in  the  quantities  and 
at  the  seasons  that  best  enable  him  to  accommodate  local 
wants ;  and  he  trades  them  upon  demand  for  the  limited 

87 


88  ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

variety  of  things  which  the  people  of  that  neighborhood 
make.  He  may  take  money  instead  of  truck  from  his 
customers,  leaving  them  to  get  the  money  by  selling  their 
truck  elsewhere.  This  is  the  more  usual  method  now, 
though  truck  stores  still  survive.  But  that  makes  no 
difference.  The  essence  of  the  matter  is  this,  that  the 
world-wide  system  of  storekeeping  enables  the  makers  of 
particular  things  or  parts  of  particular  things  anywhere 
to  trade  them  everywhere  for  the  things  they  want.  It 
is  a  system,  that  is  to  say,  which  binds  the  whole  civilized 
world  together  in  a  commercial  relationship. 

In  the  evolution  of  storekeeping  there  have  grown  up 
two  kinds  of  stores,  the  wholesale  and  the  retail.  Of  each 
there  are  numerous  grades,  some  of  which  assume  dis- 
tinctive names,  but  these  two  are  the  grand  divisions. 
Wholesale  storekeeping  consists  in  collecting  and  storing 
for  the  accommodation  of  retailers,  while  retail  storekeep- 
ing consists  in  collecting  and  storing  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  consumers. 

The  compensation  of  storekeepers  is  estimated  in  what 
are  called  "profits."  When  a  storekeeper  has  collected 
goods  in  his  store  for  the  accommodation  of  those  who 
buy  of  him,  he  charges  for  the  goods  a  higher  price  than 
he  has  paid.  The  difference  is  his  "profit."  But  out  of 
that  "profit"  he  must  pay  all  the  expenses  of  his  business, 
including  compensation  or  wages  for  his  own  work. 
"Profit,"  therefore,  is  not  a  distinctive  term. 

For  the  present  purpose  it  is  unnecessary  to  consider 
wholesale  stores  particularly,  but  we  shall  find  it  helpful 
to  illustrate  crudely  the  principle  that  determines  the  dis- 
tribution of  retail  stores  over  a  country. 

If  we  imagine  a  small  community  at  some  distance 
from  a  trade  center,  a  community  without  a  store,  we 


DEPARTMENT   STORES  89 

shall  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  how  the  peo- 
ple there  would  do  their  trading.  To  some  extent  ped- 
dlers might  serve  them.  But  they  would  often  be  obliged 
to  go  to  the  distant  trade  center  for  the  purpose  of  sell- 
ing products  and  buying  supplies;  for  the  purpose,  that 
is,  of  trading  the  few  kinds  of  things  which  they  make 
and  others  want,  for  the  many  kinds  of  things  which  the 
rest  of  the  world  makes  and  they  want. 

This  journey,  if  infrequent,  might  be  an  excuse  for  a 
holiday.  But  if  local  needs  made  its  frequent  repetition 
necessary,  it  would  become  part  of  the  regular  duty  of 
each  family;  and  so,  instead  of  being  a  welcome  excuse 
for  a  holiday,  would  be  work.  And  not  only  would  it  be 
work,  and  irksome  work,  but  it  would  interfere  with 
other  work. 

At  that  point,  the  natural  desire  for  economy  sug- 
gesting some  improvement,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the 
different  families  might  hire  some  one  to  make  it  his 
especial  duty  to  "go  to  town"  as  a  truckman  for  all  the 
rest,  delivering  what  they  sent  and  buying  what  they 
ordered,  they  paying  him  wages.  That  has  not  been  an 
unusual  arrangement  in  such  circumstances. 

This  arrangement  could  not  continue  long  without 
the  truckman's  discovering,  if  he  were  bright,  that 
by  laying  in  a  stock  of  staple  articles,  he  might  satisfy 
the  requirements  of  his  employers  and  yet  economize  his 
own  labor;  and  he  would  consequently  see  the  wisdom 
of  proposing  a  modification  of  his  arrangement.  Instead 
of  often  driving  back  and  forth  to  the  distant  town,  carry- 
ing goods  either  way  for  wages  as  a  hired  man,  he  would 
offer  to  open  a  local  store,  where  he  would  buy  local 
products  outright,  and  also  keep  on  hand  at  all  times  a 
stock  of  goods  from  which  his  neighbors  could  satisfy 


90  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

their  wants.  If  he  did  this,  he  would  be  serving  his 
neighbors  in  his  capacity  of  independent  storekeeper, 
precisely  as  he  had  served  them  before  in  his  capacity  of 
hired  truckman.  But  they  would  now  be  better  served, 
and  he  would  get  his  pay  no  longer  in  wages  but  through 
the  "profits"  of  buying  in  a  cheaper  and  selling  in  a 
dearer  market. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  the  foregoing  example  does 
not  illustrate  literally  the  origin  of  local  stores,  but  that 
it  is  intended  to  concentrate  attention  upon  the  fact  that 
the  local  storekeeper  saves  his  neighbors  the  necessity  of 
going  or  sending  to  a  distant  place  to  trade.  Essentially 
he  is  their  servant.  They  buy  of  him  because  it  is  more 
economical  and  satisfactory  to  allow  him  his  "profit" 
than  to  do  for  themselves  or  through  hired  truckmen  the 
work  which  he  does  for  them. 

It  is  for  their  accommodation,  therefore,  and  not  pri- 
marily for  his  own  profit,  that  his  store  is  patronized. 
Consequently,  if  another  storekeeper  undertakes  to  ac- 
commodate them  just  as  well,  and  they  buy  of  him,  the 
first  storekeeper  can  offer  no  reasonable  objection.  His 
neighbors  are  not  under  any  obligation  to  allow  him  a 
better  income  for  doing  their  storekeeping  than  some 
one  else  is  willing  to  do  it  for. 

The  same  principle  applies  when  an  enterprising  store 
in  the  distant  city  offers  to  receive  orders  by  mail  and  to 
deliver  goods  daily  at  lower  prices  than  the  local  store- 
keeper demands.  What  objection  can  he  urge  to  that, 
even  if  it  drives  him  out  of  the  storekeeping  business? 
None.  His  store  is  a  local  convenience,  nothing  more; 
and  when  a  greater  local  convenience  supersedes  it,  it 
has  no  longer  any  reason  for  being. 

With  the  understanding,  then,  that  a  storekeeper,  in 


DEPARTMENT   STORES  91 

his  capacity  of  storekeeper,  is  only  a  servant  to  his  neigh- 
bors, and  that  when  for  any  reason  his  service  costs  them 
more  than  equally  good  or  better  service  can  be  had  for, 
it  is  no  longer  a  service  but  a  burden — with  that  under- 
standing clear,  let  us  advance  from  a  consideration  of  the 
principle  of  storekeeping  in  general  to  the  business  of 
storekeeping  in  and  about  the  region  of  department 
stores,  and  from  imaginary  to  actual  conditions. 

In  American  cities  and  their  suburbs  a  vast  number  of 
retail  stores  have  sprung  up  and  flourished.  The  particu- 
lar circumstances  of  their  origin  are  immaterial.  They 
came  because  their  projectors  believed  that  the  people  in 
their  respective  localities  needed  them,  and  they  flour- 
ished because  they  enabled  those  people  to  satisfy  their 
store  wants  economically — more  economically  than  in  any 
other  way. 

But  now  appear  the  department  stores.  These  keep  in 
stock  or  store  all  kinds  of  goods,  from  testaments  to  play- 
ing cards,  from  soda  water  to  whisky,  from  a  paper  of 
pins  to  a  bicycle,  a  piano  or  a  set  of  furniture.  Almost 
anything  you  want  you  can  get  here,  in  any  quantity,  and 
at  prices  which  are  not  only  lower  than  ordinary  retail 
prices,  but  lower  than  ordinary  retailers  themselves  can 
buy  the  same  goods  for  from  the  manufacturers.  Inevit- 
ably, therefore,  the  department  store  must  be  prejudicial 
to  the  business  of  all  ordinary  retailers,  and  destructive 
to  the  business  of  many. 

So  it  is  not  remarkable,  in  times  when  business  clamors 
for  Congressional  and  other  legislative  protection,  that 
small  retailers  should  put  forth  pleas  for  protection  by 
legislation  from  the  encroachments  of  department  stores. 
But  is  legislative  protection  really  possible?  Reflection 
should  satisfy  any  one  that  it  is  not. 


92  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

It  is  not  department  stores  but  retail  buyers  that  close 
small  stores.  What  the  department  stores  do  is  to  offer 
goods  at  low  prices,  and  buyers  do  the  rest.  If  depart- 
ment stores  are  really,  all  things  considered,  more  econom- 
ical and  otherwise  satisfactory  than  small  retail  stores, 
the  people  will  keep  on  buying  at  them ;  and  no  law  that 
either  is  or  ought  to  be  constitutional  can  stop  it.  If 
they  are  really  economical  it  would  be  as  futile  to  attempt 
to  legislate  against  department  stores  in  the  interest  of 
small  stores,  as  to  legislate  against  railroads  in  the  inter- 
est of  canal  boats  or  stage  lines,  against  electric  cars  in 
the  interest  of  hack  drivers,  against  steamships  in  the 
interest  of  sailing  vessels,  or  against  labor-saving  ma- 
chinery in  the  interest  of  trades  unions.  The  economical 
instinct  is  too  potent  a  force  for  any  restrictive  legislation 
long  to  resist. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  department  stores  are  in  fact 
not  more  economical  than  small  stores,  no  legislation  is 
necessary.  They  may  last  a  little  while  as  a  fad;  but 
unless  they  really  do  economical  service  for  consumers, 
consumers  will  soon  forsake  them. 

The  question  is  wholly  one  of  economy ;  wholly  a  ques- 
tion of  saving  labor.  It  is  another  form  of  the  question 
of  labor-saving  machinery.  What  small  storekeepers 
complain  of  is  the  same  thing  in  essence  that  printers 
complained  of  when  the  type-setting  machine  displaced 
so  many  of  their  number.  The  cry  of  pain  which  the 
small  storekeeper  emits  merely  shows  that  the  labor  prob- 
lem is  pinching  him  for  a  solution,  and  that  the  problem 
is  by  no  means  so  funny  nor  its  solution  so  simple  as  he 
thought  when  it  only  pinched  "workingmen."  Being  a 
question  of  economy,  this  department  store  question  must 
be  settled,  like  all  other  phases  of  the  labor  question,  not 


DEPARTMENT   STORES  g;^ 

by  legislative  restrictions  upon  the  economical  instinct 
of  any  men,  but  by  giving  to  that  instinct  in  general  un- 
obstructed play. 

Not  alone  is  it  true  that  legislation  cannot  suppress  de- 
partment stores  if  they  are  a  genuine  advance  in  the 
direction  of  economy ;  it  is  also  true  that  legislation  ought 
not  to  be  used  for  that  purpose  even  if  it  would  be  effec- 
tive. Such  legislation  would  be  in  essence  legislation 
against  buyers,  to  prevent  their  economizing.  That  is  a 
purpose  for  which  legislation  cannot  be  rightfully  used. 
It  would  be  legislation  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  the 
community  to  support  men  in  a  business  which  has  ceased 
to  be  serviceable.  That,  also,  is  a  purpose  for  which  leg- 
islation cannot  be  rightfully  used.  No  man,  no  class, 
has  the  moral  right  to  invoke  the  law-making  power  to 
maintain  a  business  which  the  people  if  left  to  themselves 
would  refuse  to  support.  The  law-making  power  that 
responds  to  such  a  call  prostitutes  its  functions. 

Would  we,  then,  see  men  thrown  out  of  all  employ- 
ment by  the  encroachments  of  economizing  improve- 
ments? By  no  means.  We  should  labor  and  plead,  on 
the  contrary,  for  a  complete  emancipation  of  the  natural 
opportunities  for  employment,  so  that  no  one  could  possi- 
bly be  idle  against  his  own  will. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  work  that  men  want  done. 
No  machinery  can  restrict  it,  no  possible  extension  of  the 
department  store  system  can  lower  the  demand.  The 
cheaper  we  get  things,  the  more  things  we  want  and  the 
more  work  we  therefore  require.  Natural  demand  for 
work  is  always  in  excess  of  the  supply.  But  in  exist- 
ing industrial  conditions  natural  demand  is  not  free  to 
express  itself.  Effective  demand,  therefore,  is  in  those 
conditions  always  less  than  the  supply. 


94  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

If  natural  demand  were  free  to  express  itself,  new 
machines  would  mean  more  demand  for  workers  instead 
of  less,  and  department  stores  would  put  greater  life  into 
trade  instead  of  stagnating  it.  But  the  demand  for  work- 
ers is  held  in  check  by  monopoly  of  opportunities  for 
work — monopoly  created  and  maintained  by  statute  law 
in  hostility  to  natural  law. 

While  this  exists,  every  new  labor-saving  machine 
threatens  the  livelihood  of  great  masses  of  workingmen ; 
and  every  extension  of  economies  in  trade,  by  means  of 
department  stores  or  other  forms  of  concentration,  be- 
comes a  growing  menace  to  the  business  of  small  store- 
keepers. But  if  legalized  monopoly  were  abolished,  all 
economizing  processes  would  be  blessmgs  alike  to  con- 
sumers and  producers,  to  buyers  and  sellers. 

The  department  store  problem,  like  the  labor  problem, 
is  at  bottom  only  a  phase  of  the  general  problem  of  legal- 
ized monopoly.  It  is  to  be  solved  not  by  further  protec- 
tive legislation,  but  by  legislation  destructive  of  the  leg- 
islation upon  which  monopoly  in  general  rests.  When 
that  truth  once  takes  possession  of  men  who  feel  the 
pinch  of  industrial  conditions,  and  of  those  who  sympa- 
thize with  them,  a  new  light  will  dawn.  Then  competi- 
tion will  be  recognized  as  cooperation,  and  be  fostered 
until  it  is  wholly  free;  then  everything  that  saves  labor 
will  be  welcomed  by  every  one  who  lives  by  laboring. 


CHAPTER    II 

GENERAL   BUSINESS   CONCENTRATION 

THE  most  significant  tendency  of  modern  business, 
not  only  in  storekeeping  but  in  nearly  every  other 
sphere  of  industry,  is  production  on  a  large  scale — busi- 
ness "concentration,"  or  "organization"  as  it  is  com- 
monly called.  Opinions  as  to  the  beneficence  of  this 
tendency  doubtless  depend  greatly  upon  the  point  of 
view.  The  head  of  a  large  and  flourishing  establishment 
would  naturally  look  upon  it  very  differently  from  the 
small  producer  whose  field  of  industry  has  been  invaded 
and  his  living  possibly  taken  from  him  by  large  concerns. 
But  there  must  be  some  test  by  which  to  determine,  re- 
gardless of  personal  interests,  whether  or  not  concentra- 
tion is  socially  injurious;  and  the  rational  test  would 
seem  to  be  one  that  makes  the  question  hinge  upon  the 
character  of  the  impulse  back  of  the  concentration. 

When  the  object  and  effect  of  changes  from  produc- 
tion on  a  small  scale  to  production  on  a  large  scale  are 
economy,  the  new  method  requiring  less  labor  than  the 
old,  then  the  tendency  is  normal  and  therefore  calculated 
to  be  beneficial.  Concentration  for  that  reason  and  with 
that  effect  is  but  a  form  of  labor-saving  invention.  It 
produces  more  or  better  things  with  no  more  labor  than 
before,  or  the  same  things  with  less.  What  the  steam  car 
is  to  the  ox  cart,  production  on  a  large  scale  is  to  pro- 
duction on  a  small  scale.  The  factory  is  an  example. 
Advance  in  manufactures,  from  the  production  in  little 

95 


^6  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

shops  of  half  a  century  and  more  ago  to  the  wholesale 
production  in  great  modern  establishments,  has  been  be- 
cause the  latter  method  is  cheaper — because,  that  is  to 
say,  it  yields  better  results  with  less  labor.  The  change 
is  natural,  and  if  in  practice  it  has  hardly  been  altogether 
beneficent,  this  is  not  due  to  tlie  change  from  a  small  to  a 
large  scale  of  production,  not  to  concentration  so-called, 
but  to  industrial  maladjustments  which  prevent  the  bene- 
fits of  the  improvement  from  being  fairly  shared. 

But  a  very  different  impulse  may  cause  business 
concentration.  When  it  is  adopted  not  as  a  cheapener 
of  production,  but  as  a  method  of  killing  competition, 
then  the  tendency  it  expresses  is  abnormal  and  unwhole- 
some. Of  concentration  from  this  impulse,  the  trust  is 
the  great  example.  Trusts  have  for  their  object  and  ef- 
fect, not  the  object  and  effect  of  labor-saving  inventions — 
not  the  multiplication  of  products,  not  the  lessening  of 
the  labor  of  production,  not  the  cheapening  of  prices, — 
but  the  curtailing  of  production  for  the  purpose  of  forc- 
ing prices  up  and  wages  down. 

Prices  of  trust  products  have  indeed  been  known  to  go 
down,  but  that  has  always  been  in  spite  of  the  trust  and 
not  because  of  the  trust.  It  has  been  because  the  trust 
was  too  weak  for  its  purpose.  No  trust  has  ever  yet 
lowered  prices  except  in  response  to  competition  or  in 
fear  of  it,  a  force  which  it  is  the  principal  aim  and  object 
of  trusts  to  destroy.  Though  trusts  wear  the  garb  of 
economical  concentration,  and  so  mislead  both  those  who 
oppose  and  those  who  favor  them  into  confusing  them 
with  natural  concentration,  as  if  the  two  were  identical, 
trusts  are  no  more  the  same  as  natural  concentration  than 
the  wolf  wearing  Red  Ridinghood's  cloak  was  Red  Rid- 
inghood  herself. 


BUSINESS   CONCENTRATION        97 

This  distinction  between  natural  concentration  for  in- 
creasing production,  and  trust  concentration  for  dimin- 
ishing it,  should  be  borne  in  mind  when  industrial  ques- 
tions that  relate  to  production  on  a  large  scale  are  consid- 
ered. If  the  change  from  a  comparatively  small  to  a 
comparatively  large  scale  of  production  be  arbitrary,  if 
it  be  a  mere  combination  of  individual  establishments  to 
stop  competition  between  them  and  to  prevent  competi- 
tion from  other  sources — if,  in  a  word,  it  be  a  trust — 
then  the  change  is  unnatural  and  oppressive.  But  if  the 
change  be  a  genuine  labor  saver,  something  which  instead 
of  lessening  production  increases  it,  instead  of  weaken- 
ing competition  intensifies  it,  then  the  change  is  natural 
and  the  result  will  be  beneficial. 

Put  to  this  test,  such  concentrated  mercantile  enter- 
prizes  as  department  stores  would  appear  to  be  beneficial. 
Their  object  and  eflFect  is  not  to  increase  prices  but  to 
lower  them,  not  to  lessen  production  but  to  augment  it, 
not  to  prevent  competition  but  to  intensify  it,  not  to  ob- 
struct the  consumer  but  to  accommodate  him.  Like  the 
great  factory,  therefore,  they  are  an  example  of  the  nor- 
mal and  beneficent  tendency  toward  production  on  a 
large  scale — an  instance  of  legitimate  concentration. 
And  as  the  factory  has  displaced  the  small  shops  or 
changed  their  character,  so  the  department  store  will  in 
great  measure,  if  not  wholly,  as  related  improvements 
come  in,  displace  or  change  the  character  of  small  stores. 
Should  this  seem  hard  upon  the  small  storekeeper,  it  is 
not  more  so  than  the  railroad  was  upon  the  stage  driver, 
or  the  linotype  machine  upon  the  old  compositor.  Even 
if  the  change  could  be  prevented,  the  prevention  would 
be  unjust.  Though  it  might  appear  to  benefit  small 
storekeepers,  it  would  actually  injure  consumers.     But, 


98  ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

being  a  natural  development,  the  change  cannot  be  pre- 
vented. It  is  a  condition  which,  like  rain  and  sunshine, 
must  be  taken  as  it  comes.  And  but  for  industrial  mal- 
adjustments which  obstruct  the  diffusion  of  its  benefits, 
no  one,  not  even  the  displaced  storekeepers  themselves, 
would  for  one  moment  desire  its  prevention. 

As  to  bonanza  farming,  there  is  reason  to  doubt  that 
it  is  in  fact  a  labor  saver,  though  it  is  said  to  have  driven 
out  the  farmers  of  New  England,  and  to  threaten  small 
farming  even  in  the  West.  The  argument  as  to  New 
England  rests  upon  an  asserted  decline  in  farm  values, 
but  that  does  not  support  the  argument  While  it  is  true 
that  some  farms  in  New  England  have  fallen  greatly  in 
value,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  this  has  been  caused 
by  the  competition  of  bonanza  farms.  It  is  more  likely 
to  have  been  caused  by  the  shifting  of  the  uses  of  land 
in  New  England,  a  view  which  is  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  while  some  land  values  in  New  England  have  fallen, 
land  values  there  in  general  have  enormously  increased. 
The  region  has  been  going  through  a  transformation, 
from  farming  to  more  advanced  industrial  uses.  It  may 
be  that  this  change  has  been  brought  about  by  Western 
farming.  If  so,  however,  that  is  because  the  greater  fer- 
tility of  the  West  has  been  made  available  by  railroads, 
and  not  because  there  are  bonanza  farms  there. 

If  in  the  West  small  farming  is  in  danger  from  the 
bonanza  farm,  the  fact  has  yet  to  be  shown.  It  may  be 
in  danger  from  discriminations  by  railroads ;  but  farmers 
are  not  wanting  who  assert  that  in  the  absence  of  special 
railroad  privileges,  bonanza  farming  cannot  compete 
with  farming  upon  a  small  scale.  Assuming,  neverthe- 
less, that  production  on  a  large  scale  is  as  normal  in  agri- 
culture as  in  manufactures  and  merchandizing,  the  time 


BUSINESS   CONCENTRATIQN        99 

must  come,  upon  that  assumption,  when  small  farming 
will  give  way  to  bonanza  farming,  just  as  small  shops 
have  given  way  to  large  factories,  and  as  small  stores 
are  giving  way  to  department  stores.  If  bonanza  farm- 
ing can  produce  the  same  results  as  small  farming,  with 
less  labor,  or  better  results  with  the  same  labor — if,  that 
is,  it  is  truly  more  economical — then  bonanza  farming  is 
destined  to  be  the  farming  of  the  future.  And  it  will,  in 
that  case,  be  beneficent,  even  to  the  small  farmers,  unless 
industrial  maladjustments  interfere  with  the  normal  dis- 
tribution of  its  benefits. 

What  makes  the  prospect  of  production  on  a  large 
scale  so  ominous,  and  it  is  ominous  indeed,  is  the  thought, 
expressed  or  felt,  that  the  change  implies  in  its  culmina- 
tion a  state  of  society  in  which  the  few  will  be  masters 
and  the  many  serfs.  We  think  of  large  factories  as  being 
under  the  mastership  of  manufacturing  "barons,"  whose 
employes  are  slaves  without  the  ordinary  slave  guaran- 
tees of  support.  Department  stores  associate  themselves 
in  imagination  with  merchant  "princes"  attended  by  hosts 
of  cringing  clerks.  And  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive 
of  bonanza  farms  without  bonanza  "farmers"  and  their 
gangs  of  dependent  "hands."  Such,  too,  will  most  assur- 
edly be  the  outcome  if  we  allow  maladjustments  to  per- 
petuate themselves,  and  to  extend  into  the  era  of  produc- 
tion on  the  largest  scale. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  RAGE   FOR  TRUSTS 

THE  economic  advantages  of  legitimate  concentra- 
tion in  business  have  created  a  rage  for  concentra- 
tion, regardless  of  whether  it  may  be  legitimate  or  not. 
For  several  years,  consequently,  the  air  has  been  laden 
with  schemes  for  consolidating  business  competitors. 
The  old  business  maxim,  sound  and  wholesome,  that 
"competition  is  the  life  of  trade,"  has  been  discarded  in 
industrial  circles,  for  the  theory,  for  which  no  maxim 
has  yet  gained  currency,  that  consolidation  is  the  condi- 
tion of  success.  This  theory  is  the  vital  principle  of 
trusts. 

The  latest  mode  of  trust  organization  is  a  vast  im- 
provement upon  earlier  ones.  Competitors  no  longer  en- 
ter into  trust  agreements  in  restraint  of  competition. 
That  primitive  mode  proved  to  be  altogether  incompe- 
tent. The  trust  agreements  were  evaded  and  sometimes 
openly  violated;  and,  as  tliey  fell  under  the  ban  of  the 
law,  there  was  no  redress  in  the  courts.  What  competi- 
tors aiming  to  organize  a  trust  do  now,  is  to  form  a  legal 
corporation  in  which  all  proprietors  become  stockhold- 
ers, paying  for  their  stock  with  their  respective  business 
plants.  Establishments  that  formerly  competed  for  busi- 
ness thus  become  part  of  one  great  concern  under  the 
management  and  control  of  one  board  of  directors,  li 
the  former  owners  continue  to  operate  their  plants  they 
do  so  no  longer  as  owners,  but  as  corporation  employes. 


THE   RAGE   FOR   TRUSTS         loi 

It  is  the  corporation,  too,  that  determines  as  to  each  plant 
whether  it  shall  be  operated  at  all. 

Or,  the  same  end  may  be  attained  by  an  improved 
mode  which  has  become  more  common.  A  managing 
corporation  is  formed  which  acquires  the  ownership  of  a 
majority  of  the  stock  of  each  of  the  corporations  to  be 
combined.  The  latter  then  go  on,  nominally  as  inde- 
pendent concerns  under  the  nominal  management  of  their 
respective  boards  of  directors,  but  really  as  constituent 
or  subordinate  companies  under  the  control  of  the 
blanket  company. 

There  is  no  opportunity,  therefore,  as  there  was  under 
the  primitive  mode  of  making  trusts,  for  any  party  to  the 
trust  to  evade  his  obligations  to  his  confederates.  The 
business  is  wholly  in  the  hands  of  a  central  corporation, 
which  has  the  legal  attributes  of  a  natural  person;  and 
the  trust,  instead  of  being  under  the  ban  of  the  law,  oper- 
ates under  its  sanction. 

An  effect,  and  one  of  the  objects,  of  these  combina- 
tions, is  to  dispense  with  many  employes  and  cut  down 
the  wages  of  most  of  the  others.  Journeymen  mechanics 
and  unskilled  laborers  may  escape.  Whether  they  do  or 
not,  depends  upon  whether  the  trust  reduces  its  produc- 
tion. If  it  does  not,  these  employes  remain ;  if  it  does,  they 
suffer  with  the  rest.  Whether  mechanics  and  laborers  are 
affected  or  not,  such  employes  as  salesmen,  bookkeepers, 
foremen,  clerks  and  the  like  are  sure  to  be  hurt.  When 
many  establishments  are  consolidated,  even  though  as 
many  mechanics  and  laborers  be  required  as  before,  they 
can  be  governed  by  fewer  foremen,  and  the  output  can 
be  disposed  of  and  accounted  for  by  fewer  salesmen, 
bookkeepers  and  clerks.  The  organization  of  a  trust, 
therefore,   involves  the   discharges,   more  or   fewer,  of 


I02         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

this  class  of  employes;  and  that  in  turn  involves  the  re- 
duction of  the  wages  of  those  who  remain.  This  has 
been  one  of  the  notable  facts  in  connection  with  the  trust 
craze.  The  general  public  may  not  be  aware  of  it,  but 
foremen,  clerks,  bookkeepers  and  salesmen  are  pain- 
fully so. 

Another  object  and  effect  of  trusts  is  the  destruction 
of  competitors  who  are  left  out  of  the  combination. 
Since  the  motive  for  combining  is  to  kill  competition,  out- 
siders must  be  crushed  or  the  combination  fails  of  its 
purpose.  Many  methods  of  accomplishing  this  are  re- 
sorted to.  It  may  be  done  by  selling  certain  lines  of 
goods  for  a  time  at  less  than  cost.  The  trust  can  stand 
that  longer  than  its  small  competitors,  and  when  they 
are  out  of  the  way  can  recoup  by  charging  higher 
prices  than  ever.  Even  while  a  price  war  is  in  progress, 
the  trust  may  charge  excessively  for  goods  that  are  not 
in  the  field  of  competition,  while  selling  below  cost  those 
that  are  in  that  field.  But  whatever  the  method,  the  ob- 
ject is  to  crowd  out  all  competition  and  secure  the  whole 
field  for  the  trust. 

Competitive  business  men  are  sharply  admonished  of 
this  by  diminishing  custom  and  decreasing  profits.  Some 
even  of  the  best  of  them  begin  to  look  forward  to  retiring 
from  business  into  high-grade  clerkships ;  and  a  vast 
number  are  contemplating  the  possibility,  if  they  them- 
selves fail  to  get  into  a  trust,  of  competing  with  lower 
grades  of  clerks  for  their  already  precarious  places. 

Whether  or  not  the  trust  has  come  to  stay,  is  an  open 
question.  Trust  magnates  have  no  doubt  of  it.  The 
ordinary  business  man  fears  it.  Social  agitators  proclaim 
it.  And  only  here  and  there  is  doubt  expressed.  Never- 
theless it  may  well  be  that  the  making  of  many  trusts  is 


THE   RAGE   FOR   TRUSTS         103 

only  an  evanescent  craze,  and  that  the  trusts  are  mere 
bubbles  which  must  soon  burst. 

But  any  intelligent  conclusion  as  to  that  point  must 
rest  upon  an  understanding  of  the  differences  in  trusts, 
which  we  have  already  noted.  There  are  trusts  and 
trusts.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  predicated  of  the  trust 
generally  that  it  must  either  succeed  or  collapse.  Some 
kinds  of  trusts  may  succeed  if  well  managed,  while 
others,  no  matter  how  well  managed,  may  be  predestined 
to  inevitable  collapse.  Some  analysis,  then,  of  trusts  as 
they  confront  us  is  necessary. 

As  already  suggested,  we  can  conceive  of  a  trust  hav- 
ing for  its  sole  object  and  effect  economy  in  production. 
Consolidation  of  business  plants  might  lessen  the  cost  of 
supplying  goods  to  consumers.  It  might  do  this  in  part 
by  reducing  the  number  of  managers,  clerks,  bookkeep- 
ers, and  so  on,  necessary  to  supply  a  given  demand ;  and 
in  part  through  those  innumerable  other  economies 
which,  in  favorable  conditions,  flow  from  operations  upon 
a  large  scale.  That  kind  of  trust  would  be  analogous  to 
labor-saving  inventions.  Indeed,  it  would  be  a  labor- 
saving  invention  itself.  Familiar  examples  are  offered 
by  the  department  store,  by  farming  on  a  large  scale,  by 
manufacturing  combinations,  by  any  business  consolida- 
tion, however  vast,  which  is  neither  directly  nor  indi- 
rectly buttressed  by  legal  privileges. 

Such  a  trust  would,  in  the  absence  of  legal  privileges, 
be  compelled,  by  fears  of  engendering  competition  if 
not  by  competition  itself,  to  give  to  consumers  the  bene- 
fit of  its  economies.  And  though  this  trust  would  dis- 
place employes  and  independent  employers,  just  as  labor- 
saving  machines  do,  just  as  all  economies  must,  there 
would  be  nothing  to  deplore  in  that,  if  opportunities  to 


I04         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

work  for  others  or  to  do  independent  business  in  other 
and  related  lines  were  inviting  and  insistent.  The  dis- 
placement would  then  be  a  simple  and  easily  adopted 
change  of  occupation ;  not  exile  from  the  whole  industrial 
field. 

Trusts  of  that  character  are  not  essentially  bad.  On 
the  contrary,  like  labor-saving  machines,  they  are  essen- 
tially good.  If  they  operate  prejudicially  in  actual  prac- 
tice, it  is  not  because  they  are  injurious  in  themselves, 
but  because  they  exist  in  conditions  which  operate,  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  to  bar  out  from  other  employ- 
ments the  workers  and  business  men  whom  they  displace. 

Moreover,  these  trusts  cannot  carry  organization  to 
the  point  of  perpetually  monopolizing  a  business.  The 
notion  that  they  can  and  do,  proceeds  from  the  mistaken 
supposition  that  business  combination  is  progressively 
economical  without  limit;  which  in  turn  proceeds  from 
the  fact  that  business  combination  is  economical  up  to  a 
certain  point.  In  truth  the  economies  of  organization  are 
limited.  As  soon  as  organization  reaches  the  point  of 
highest  economy  in  a  given  case  it  becomes  progressively 
uneconomical.  To  overcome  this  tendency,  business 
combinations  must  combine  monopoly  interests  as  dis- 
tinguished from  competitive  interests.  Good-will  serves 
to  a  degree ;  trade-marks,  a  species  of  good-will,  also 
serve;  the  buying  habits  of  the  public  can  be  monopo- 
lized by  these  means  even  for  inferior  goods  for  a  time 
and  to  a  degree.  But  no  permanent  trust  can  be  founded 
upon  those  personal  advantages.  Permanent  trusts  re- 
quire primary  monopolies — monopolies  that  are  created 
by  law  and  control  the  necessary  conditions  of  profitable 
production,  transportation  and  trade. 

Of  primary  monopolies,  patent  privileges  are  compara- 


THE   RAGE   FOR  TRUSTS         105 

lively  weak  and  count  for  little,  because  their  power  is 
temporary.  The  tariff  and  other  taxation  on  production 
and  trade  serve  only  to  limit  the  field  of  competition,  and, 
although  powerful,  are  not  supreme.  This  may  also  be 
true  of  highway  privileges  when  segregated ;  of  terminal 
point  monopolies  considered  individually;  of  particular 
monopolies  of  sources  of  original  supply;  of  particular 
monopolies  of  superior  trading  sites,  and  of  other  monop- 
olies of  location,  each  considered  by  itself.  But  some  of 
these  privileges  are  of  gigantic  power,  and  when  all  are 
combined  they  are  irresistible.  Trusts  which  rest  upon 
or  are  buttressed  by  any  of  those  privileges  are  essentially 
bad  and  dangerous. 

The  harmful  power  of  a  railroad  trust  is  the  owner- 
ship of  great  public  highways  and  terminal  points  which 
it  brings  under  a  single  control.  That  is  true,  also,  of 
street  car  combinations,  of  telephone  and  telegraph  mo- 
nopolies, of  gas  and  electric  light  and  power  trusts ;  in  a 
word,  of  all  consolidations  of  those  business  interests  that 
spring  out  of  the  law  instead  of  being  evolved  by  indi- 
vidual initiative  and  regulated  by  unobstructed  competi- 
tion. 

Mining  trusts  are  in  the  same  category.  They  are 
essentially  oppressive  because  they  consolidate  titles  to 
mining  opportunities,  and  thereby  enable  the  trusts  to 
dictate  to  all  industries  that  depend  upon  the  mineral 
deposits  of  the  globe.  And  as  with  mining  trusts,  so  with 
all  other  trusts  which,  so  to  speak,  have  their  feet  upon 
the  ground. 

Closely  akin  to  highway  and  landed  trusts  are  the 
trusts  that  bring  under  common  ownership  important 
patent  rights.  By  virtue  of  these  parchments  those  trusts 
arbitrarily  and  effectually  prohibit  the  unprivileged,  as 


io6        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

a  distinguished  patent  law  writer  puts  it,  "from  using 
some  of  the  laws  of  God,"  just  as  railroad  trusts  by  fran- 
chises, and  mining  trusts  by  deeds,  arbitrarily  and  effec- 
tually prohibit  the  unprivileged  from  using  some  of  God's 
common  wealth. 

All  these  trusts,  though  differing  in  power,  are  in 
character  one.    They  are  grounded  in  legal  privilege. 

Subordinate  to  the  privileged  trusts,  are  trusts  of  still 
another  class.  These  have  the  characteristics  externally 
of  those  of  the  first  class  described  above — those  which 
we  have  likened  to  labor-saving  machines.  They  appear 
to  have  the  benefit  of  no  monopoly  whatever,  but  to  be 
simple  unprivileged  business  combinations.  In  fact, 
however,  they  derive  legal  privileges  at  second-hand  and 
secretly  from  trusts  that  are  founded  in  privilege.  Of 
this  type  was  the  Standard  Oil  trust  at  its  inception. 
Under  secret  arrangements  with  railroads,  which  en- 
joyed highway  privileges,  the  Standard  Oil  trust  secured 
rates  of  transportation  so  much  lower  than  its  competi- 
tors were  required  by  the  same  railroads  to  pay,  that  it 
thereby  drove  its  competitors  to  the  wall.  Subsequently 
it  acquired  highway  privileges  of  its  own.  Other  trusts 
that  flourish  now,  doubtless  also  depend  for  their  power 
upon  discriminative  freight  rates. 

To  one  or  the  other  of  the  three  classes  of  trusts  men- 
tioned above,  all  the  trusts  now  organized,  or  in  process 
or  expectation  or  possibility  of  being  organized,  may  be 
assigned.  And  according  to  the  class  into  which  a  trust 
falls,  will  the  probabilities  of  its  success  or  collapse  be 
determined. 

The  weakest  of  all  the  trusts  are  those  of  the  first 
class — trusts  which  possess  no  legal  privileges.  If  capital- 
ized at  the  true  value  of  their  plants,  and  conducted 


THE   RAGE   FOR   TRUSTS         107 

merely  with  a  view  to  economy  and  not  to  keeping  prices 
above  the  competitive  level,  they  may  succeed.  But 
which  of  those  trusts  is  so  organized  and  so  conducted? 
It  is  safe  to  say,  none.  In  capitalizing,  each  plant  is  in- 
ventoried at  double  its  value  or  more;  and  the  consoli- 
dated business  is  conducted  with  a  view  to  paying  good 
dividends  on  the  stock  so  watered. 

The  trust  which  does  this,  without  the  aid  of  some 
kind  of  monopoly — land,  highway,  patent,  or  the  like — 
can  no  more  succeed  in  business  than  a  boy  can  succeed 
in  lifting  himself  by  his  boot  straps.  All  such  trusts  are 
fated  from  their  inception  to  perish.  Some  have  per- 
ished already. 

It  is  probably  true,  however,  that  most  trusts  of  the 
general  character  last  described,  are  not  of  that  character 
strictly.  Very  likely  most  of  them  are  buttressed  either 
with  some  special  privilege  of  their  own,  or  with  con- 
tractual interests  in  the  special  privileges  of  other  com- 
binations. In  that  event  their  success  depends  upon  the 
power  of  the  monopoly  they  so  enjoy — to  which  extent 
they  are  in  the  category  of  trusts  of  the  second  class  de- 
scribed above,  those  grounded  in  legal  privilege.  As 
the  latter  rise  or  fall,  so  may  the  former. 

Trusts  grounded  in  legal  privilege  may  be  expected  to 
succeed  or  collapse  according  as  their  legal  privileges 
do  or  do  not  enable  them  to  control  the  original  sources 
of  supply  of  the  goods  they  handle.  Unless  they  acquire 
control  of  these,  it  is  only  a  matter  of  time  when  another 
trust  will.  And  if  another  trust  does,  it  will  either  absorb 
the  first  one  or  crush  it. 

Steel  manufacturing  trusts  might  for  a  time  control 
the  steel  market.  But  let  another  trust  secure  the  ore 
mines,  and  the  steel  trusts  would  be  at  its  mercy.    Manu- 


io8         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

facturing  combinations,  however  complete,  however 
wealthy,  even  though  buttressed  with  patents  and  in  com- 
bination with  railroads,  can  retain  their  power  only 
while  the  owners  of  the  natural  sources  of  their  supply 
are  not  combined. 

It  is  a  sine  qua  non  to  success  that  a  trust  have  its  feet 
upon  the  earth.  This  has  been  discovered  by  the  great 
trusts.  The  steel  trust  goes  back  to  the  land,  and  makes 
ore  mines  part  of  its  property.  The  coal-transporting 
trust  of  the  anthracite  region  is  careful  to  secure  not 
only  highways,  but  coal  mines.  The  trust  that  does  not 
follow  their  example  is  doomed. 

To  analyze  this  subject  is  to  conclude  that  the  rage  for 
forming  trusts  will  eventually  react  and  produce  a  stupen- 
dous crash.  Trusts  with  much  watered  stock  and  without 
much  monopoly  power,  will  go  first  to  their  fate.  They 
will  be  followed  by  the  monopoly  trusts  that  fail  to  secure 
fundamental  monopolies.  In  the  end  no  trusts  will  be 
left  to  rule  in  the  economic  field  save  those  which  have 
their  feet  upon  the  ground.  The  trust  question  leads  di- 
rectly to  the  land  question. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   TREND   OF  THE   TRUST 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  trusts  are  classified  in  three 
categories :  trusts  without  legal  privileges,  trusts  that 
own  legal  privileges,  and  trusts  that  own  no  legal  priv- 
ileges directly  but  sublet  such  privileges  from  trusts  that 
do  own  them.  Trusts  without  legal  privileges  are  de- 
scribed as  weakest  of  all,  and  as  fated  from  their  inception 
to  perish;  those  that  sublet  legal  privileges,  as  likely  to 
rise  and  fall  in  subordination  to  the  legally  privileged 
trusts  on  which  they  are  dependent;  and  those  that  own 
legal  privileges,  as  doomed  unless  they  establish  them- 
selves firmly  upon  such  legal  privileges  as  are  fundamental 
— the  conclusion  being  that  "in  the  end  no  trusts  will 
be  left  to  rule  in  the  economic  field  save  those  which  have 
their  feet  upon  the  ground."  Proceeding  from  this  con- 
clusion, let  us  first  ask  ourselves  to  what  extent  business 
can  be  thus  securely  monopolized  by  trusts. 

The  control  of  trusts  by  trusts — in  other  words,  the 
merging  of  many  trusts  into  one  trust,  much  as  many 
kinds  of  business  have  been  merged  each  into  its  appro- 
priate trust — is  clearly  among  the  possibilities  of  trust 
development.  Such  a  tendency  has  already  become  act- 
ually manifest. 

Two  competing  railroad  systems,  for  instance,  each 
made  up  of  what  were  originally  independent  roads,  are 
in  essence  if  not  in  name,  two  independent  trusts.  In 
time  one  of  these  systems  falls  under  the  control  of  the 

109 


no        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

same  interests  that  control  the  other.  They  might  be 
operated  as  independent  properties,  preserving  the  form 
while  destroying  the  substance  of  competitive  operation, 
but  for  a  Supreme  Court  decision  against  "pooling," 
which  may  make  it  necessary,  or  at  least  expedient,  to 
abandon  even  the  form  of  competitive  operation.  If  so, 
one  would  be  operated  avowedly  as  a  branch  of  the  other. 
In  either  event  the  two  systems  would  be  but  one  sys- 
tem ;  the  two  trusts  would  be  consolidated. 

Nor  need  we  look  to  railroading  alone  for  such  ex- 
amples. Telegraphy,  telephoning,  electric  power  and 
light  supply,  gas  works,  and  the  like,  are  all  tending  to 
consolidation.  First  there  are  franchises  to  different  cor- 
porations in  a  community;  then  comes  consolidation  of 
franchises,  until  one  corporation — essentially  a  trust — 
owns  them  all.  And  that  stage  is  followed  by  a  consoli- 
dation of  these  interests  in  different  communities  under 
a  central  control — a  central  trust- 
As  to  trusts  generally — the  "industrials,"  as  their  stock 
is  called  in  the  "street'* — their  evolution  is  similar.  Com- 
peting establishments  in  a  given  line  of  business,  consoli- 
date and  form  a  trust.  Their  object,  which  may  be  in 
part  to  secure  economy  in  production,  is  in  other  and 
perhaps  greater  part  to  stop  competition.  Except  as 
these  combinations  are  buttressed  with  great  legal  priv- 
ileges, they  are,  as  already  indicated,  in  danger  from  the 
constant  pressure  of  competition,  actual  or  potential, 
which  tends  to  produce  disintegration.  For  competition 
is  a  vital  social  principle.  Its  operation  may  be  ob- 
structed by  minor  monopolies,  but  its  force  cannot  be 
quite  neutralized  by  anything  short  of  perfect  and  com- 
plete monopoly.  Consequently,  until  a  trust  or  a  series 
of  trusts  secures  complete  control  of  all  tlie  natural  re- 


TREND   OF   THE   TRUST         iii 

sources  which  its  operations  require,  it  feels  the  force  of 
competitive  influences.  When  one  Hne  of  business,  there- 
fore, consolidates  into  one  trust,  and  other  more  or  less 
related  lines  consolidate  into  other  trusts,  these  various 
trusts  are  by  the  same  impulse  that  prompted  them  to 
form  original  trusts,  prompted  to  form  a  trust  of  trusts. 
They  thus  consolidate  under  one  control  not  only  all  the 
establishments  in  each  line  of  business,  but  all  the  trusts 
in  the  different  related  lines  of  business,  including  the 
trusts  that  own  the  natural  sources  of  supply. 

This  would  make  that  trust  of  trusts  invincible  within 
its  own  sphere.  Its  feet  would  be  upon  the  ground.  Yet 
it  might  still  be  embarrassed  by  its  dependence  upon 
others  for  subsidiary  products.  In  that  case  it  would 
come  into  collision  with  the  trust  of  trusts  that  had  its 
feet  upon  the  ground  as  to  those  products.  Then  a  strug- 
gle would  ensue,  the  result  of  which  would  be  consolida- 
tion of  these  trusts  of  trusts. 

Suppose,  for  illustration  (and  the  illustration  is  by  no 
means  strained),  that  the  steel  manufacturing  business 
were  by  processes  of  consolidation  brought  under  the 
control  of  a  trust  which  dominated  the  business,  merely 
as  a  steel  business,  from  beginning  to  end — owning 
everything  from  finished  product  back  to  ore  mines. 
That  trust  of  trusts  would  have  its  feet  upon  the  ground. 
But  it  must  use  coal ;  and  here,  let  us  say,  is  a  trust  of 
trusts  which  dominates  the  coal  business,  from  delivery 
at  your  cellar  door  back  to  the  mines  from  which  coal 
is  dug.  That  trust,  too,  has  its  feet  upon  the  ground. 
In  such  a  case  the  interests  of  these  two  trusts  would  col- 
lide, and  out  of  the  collision  the  steel  trust  and  the  coal 
trust  would  emerge  as  one. 

That  illustrates  the  trend  of  trusts.     Following  them 


112         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

from  their  beginnings,  we  find  a  tendency  first  to  the 
consolidation  of  businesses  of  the  same  kind  into  trusts 
for  those  kinds  of  business  respectively ;  then  to  the  con- 
solidation of  trusts  in  kindred  lines;  then  to  the  consoli- 
dation of  those  trusts  as  they  come  into  collision  with  one 
another;  and  so  on,  each  trust  gaining  power  over  its 
rivals  as  it  secures  a  broader  and  firmer  foothold  upon  the 
ground. 

Unhindered  by  fundamental  reform,  the  organization 
of  trusts  and  their  absorption  into  trusts  of  trusts  would 
eventuate  in  the  ownership  of  all  business  by  some 
gigantic  trust,  which  would  get  its  power  as  Antaeus  got 
his,  by  keeping  in  touch  with  the  earth.  Owning  the 
earth,  it  would  own  men ;  and  owning  men,  it  would  own 
all  that  they  produce,  from  the  simplest  food  to  the  most 
marvelous  machinery.  The  middle  class  would  disap- 
pear, and  only  two  classes  would  remain — beneficiaries  of 
the  trusts  and  their  favorites  on  the  one  hand,  and  im- 
poverished and  dependent  hirelings  and  beggars  for 
work  on  the  other. 

To  this  triumph  of  the  trust,  socialists  look  forward 
with  satisfaction.  They  see  in  it  the  opportunity  of  the 
people  to  take  possession  not  only  of  the  earth  but  of  the 
artificial  instruments  of  production  also,  by  dethroning 
the  few  trusts  or  the  single  trust  that  may  acquire  this 
vast  ownership.  They  are  satisfied  because  in  this  trend 
they  discover  signs  of  the  evolution  of  common  owner- 
ship of  the  mechanism  of  production  and  distribution. 
But  in  the  trust  phenomena  there  is  little  real  cause  for 
satisfaction.  As  the  evolution  of  the  trust  proceeds,  trust 
employes  become  in  greater  and  greater  degree  mere 
voting  machines,  registering  at  the  polls  not  their  own 
convictions,  but  their  employers'  commands.    This  condi- 


TREND   OF  THE  TRUST         113 

tion,  only  worse,  would  be  universal  should  the  develop- 
ment of  trusts  proceed  even  approximately  to  the  point 
indicated  above  as  possible.  And  when  the  time  came  to 
dethrone  the  trusts,  the  trusts  themselves — through  arm- 
ies of  dependent  voters — and  not  the  convictions  or  the 
interests  of  the  people,  would  decide  the  issue.  It  might 
be  that  the  trusts  would  decide  in  favor  of  their  own  de- 
thronement. But  if  they  did,  they  themselves  would  fix 
the  terms;  and  we  may  rest  assured  that  the  dethrone- 
ment would  be  but  nominal.  All  land  and  all  machinery 
might  by  their  consent  be  turned  over  to  a  government; 
but  it  would  be  at  a  price  which  the  trusts  would  dictate, 
and  to  a  government  which  they  would  continue  to  con- 
trol. 

It  is  not  by  waiting  until  trusts  own  everything  and 
then  taking  it  from  them,  neither  by  trusting  to  their 
destroying  their  own  power  by  overproduction,  that  the 
industrial  question  must  be  met.  If  the  evils  of  the  trust 
are  to  be  overcome  and  its  dangers  avoided,  the  people 
must  possess  themselves  in  time  of  the  strategic  point  to- 
ward which  the  trust  is  advancing.  Since  the  trust  can- 
not survive  without,  Antaeus-like,  getting  its  feet  upon  the 
ground,  it  is  to  be  destroyed  only  as  Antaeus  was,  by 
keeping  it  entirely  off  the  ground. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  TRUST  AS  A  NATURAL  EVOLUTION 

THE  term  "trust"  comes  from  the  original  method  of 
trust  organization.  The  owners  of  stock  in  differ- 
ent corporations  intending  to  consolidate  would  deposit  it 
with  the  trustees,  whom  they  invested  with  absolute 
power  over  it,  subject  to  the  reservations  of  the  trust 
agreement.  In  that  manner  competing  corporations  con- 
centrated in  these  trustees  complete  control  over  their 
business,  and  the  consolidation  was  consequently  called  a 
trust.  But  this  method  of  making  industrial  combinations 
proved  by  experience  to  be  crude  and  open  to  time- 
honored  legal  objections,  and  from  time  to  time  improve- 
ments were  adopted  until  the  trust  in  its  original  form 
disappeared. 

In  a  narrow  verbal  sense,  therefore,  it  is  correct  to  say 
that  trusts  no  longer  exist.  It  is  correct,  that  is,  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  the  punster  is  correct  who  tells  you 
that  "a  door  is  not  a  door  when  it  is  a  jar" — for  it  is 
simply  a  play  upon  words.  But  only  in  that  sense,  for  the 
name  and  the  trusts  themselves  have  persisted,  though 
the  method  of  which  the  name  was  originally  descriptive 
has  long  since  given  place  to  methods  more  effective. 
Trusts  are  more  numerous  and  powerful  than  ever,  but 
they  are  no  longer  in  the  hands  of  trustees.  They  are 
formed  now,  as  described  in  a  previous  chapter,  by  the 
sale  of  competing  corporations,  or  a  majority  of  their 
stock,  to  new  corporations  organized  especially  for  the 

114 


TRUST   EVOLUTION  115 

purpose  of  buying  their  interests,  consolidating  their 
power,  and  managing  their  affairs. 

That  was  the  method  adopted  by  the  gigantic  steel 
trust.  A  syndicate  was  organized,  with  which  the  stock 
of  all  the  steel  corporations  of  the  country  was  deposited ; 
and  at  the  proper  time  this  stock  was  turned  over  in 
exchange  at  certain  ratios  for  the  stock  of  the  United 
States  Steel  Corporation,  which  had  been  organized  for 
that  purpose  under  the  laws  of  New  Jersey.  Thus  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation,  though  nominally  noth- 
ing but  a  chartered  company,  like  thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  others  that  have  been  spawned  by  incorporation 
laws,  became  in  fact  an  enormous  trust,  monopolizing  the 
steel  industry  of  America  and  reaching  out  for  the  monop- 
oly of  that  of  the  world. 

This  stupendous  consolidation  profoundly  stirred  pub- 
lic feeling.  Where  is  all  this  concentration  of  power  to 
end?  was  a  question  which  if  not  upon  every  tongue  was 
making  almost  every  heart  throb  with  anxiety.  All  our 
people  were  not  like  the  complacent  college  professor  of 
economics  who,  while  realizing  that  the  steel  trust  would 
have  "very  great  power,"  regarded  it  as  an  evil  only  in 
case  it  should  use  "this  power  to  raise  prices  to  the  con- 
sumer." There  were  those  who  had  read  history  thought- 
fully enough  to  dread  unbridled  power  in  itself. 

The  same  professor  spoke  of  these  great  combinations 
as  "a  natural  evolution  of  the  modern  industrial  system." 
That  seemed  to  him  not  only  a  sufficient  reply  to  all  objec- 
tions, but  a  complete  justification  of  the  trust  as  a  good 
thing.  Yet  he  would  hardly  have  looked  upon  typhoid 
fever  as  a  good  thing,  even  if  some  medical  professor 
had  commended  it  as  good  because  it  was  "a  natural  evo- 
lution of  a  method  of  drainage."    He  would  have  formed 


ii6        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

his  own  conclusions  as  to  the  goodness  of  typhoid  fever, 
and  if  they  were  unfavorable  would  have  suggested  that 
the  medical  professor  devise  something  in  the  way  of  im- 
proving drainage,  so  that  typhoid  fever  might  alter  its 
"natural  evolution." 

When  a  method  of  drainage  produces  typhoid  fever, 
this  does  not  prove  that  the  fever  is  good ;  it  proves  that 
the  drainage  is  bad.  So  with  trusts.  If  they  are 
a  natural  evolution  from  the  modern  industrial  system, 
so  much  the  worse  for  the  modern  industrial  system,  not 
so  much  the  better  for  trusts.  Every  tree  brings  forth 
fruit  after  its  own  kind,  and  by  its  fruit  we  know  it.  If 
the  gigantic  steel  trust,  with  the  unparalleled  power  it 
confers  upon  two  or  three  men  over  the  industries  and 
even  the  lives  of  great  masses  of  the  people,  is  a  natural 
product  of  the  modern  industrial  system,  then  it  is  time 
to  overhaul  that  system  and  learn  what  is  wrong  with  it. 

But  the  idea  that  trusts  are  good — or  at  any  rate  tend  in 
the  direction  of  good — because  they  are  a  natural  evolu- 
tion from  historical  conditions,  is  not  confined  to  political 
economy  professors.  There  is  no  lack  of  other  well  mean- 
ing people  wanting  better  things  to  come,  who  also  em- 
brace it. 

Socialists  of  the  historical  school  are  in  that  category. 
They  take  the  current  of  history  for  granted  as  good. 
Either  that,  or  they  assume  the  impossible — that  good  is 
a  natural  evolution  from  evil.  For  they  believe  that 
history  exhibits  a  process  of  evolution  which,  having 
reached  the  present  deplorable  era,  is  about  to  pass  into 
what  would  be  a  worse,  the  era  of  trusts,  if  it  were  not 
that  the  natural  evolution  from  the  trust  era  is  to  be  an  era 
of  equality  and  good  will. 

If  persons  who  believe  in  this  way  meant  that  trust 


TRUST    EVOLUTION  117 

phenomena  would  stir  up  public  sentiment  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  social  disease  that  has  produced  them,  and 
impel  it  to  seek  the  root  cause  and  apply  radical  remedies, 
their  position  would  be  intelligible.  But  they  have  no 
such  meaning.  They  mean  that  out  of  these  diseased 
social  conditions,  and  by  a  continuation  of  the  same 
natural  process  of  evolution  that  has  been  at  work  through 
the  ages,  there  will  evolve  healthy  social  conditions. 

Since  that  is  the  reason  they  welcome  trusts,  it  is  not 
just  to  say,  as  is  sometimes  hinted,  that  they  welcome 
them  from  motives  similar  to  those  which  led  the  quack 
doctor  to  produce  fits  in  his  chicken  pox  patients — because 
he  was  death  on  fits  and  didn't  know  much  about  chicken 
pox — although  their  programme  does  suggest  it.  They 
look  expectantly  and  hopefully  for  the  concentration  of 
all  business  in  a  few  great  trusts  because  they  are  confi- 
dent that  this  condition  will  generate  one  in  which  the 
people  as  a  whole,  in  an  organized  capacity,  will  acquire 
and  administer  all  business  for  the  common  good.  This 
programme  truly  is,  upon  the  surface,  somewhat  like 
turning  chicken  pox  into  fits  and  then  curing  the  fits; 
but  that  is  really  not  a  true  interpretation  of  their  reason 
for  exalting  trusts  as  a  natural  development  toward  better 
things.  They  seem  to  believe  that  all  through  history  the 
human  race  has  been  a  sick  man  (not  from  disregard  of 
fundamental  laws  of  social  health,  but  of  necessity  in  the 
nature  of  things  evolutionary),  who  from  one  disease  to 
another  has  finally  got  a  chicken  pox,  which,  in  due 
course,  is  producing  fits,  and  that  the  fits  will  in  turn 
produce  good  health.  It  is  not  an  encouraging  pro- 
gramme. 

Besides  the  philosophical  absurdity  of  expecting  a 
natural  evolution  of  good  from  evil,  the  generation  of 


ii8         ETHICS    OF    DEMOCRACY 

health  by  disease,  there  is  to  be  considered  the  common- 
place fact  heretofore  alluded  to,  that  the  masterful  minds 
which  are  able  to  dominate  private  trusts  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  dominating  government  trusts,  even  under 
popular  government ;  yea,  more  triumphantly  under  popu- 
lar government.  The  invitation  to  cure  the  trust  evil  by 
encouraging  the  development  of  trusts  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  their  being  taken  over  ultimately  by  some  form  of 
popular  government,  is  an  invitation  to  join  in  completing 
the  destruction,  instead  of  achieving  the  restoration,  of 
popular  liberty. 

Unfortunately,  the  drift  of  discussion  regarding  the 
trust  evil  has  seemed  to  favor  this  policy.  That  result  is 
immensely  contributed  to  by  slovenliness  in  analyzing  the 
trust  problem.  It  has  been  assumed  too  carelessly  that 
mere  combinations  make  monopoly.  Hence  attention  has 
been  centered  upon  the  problem  of  checking  combinations, 
and  been  thereby  diverted  from  the  vital  point,  which  is 
the  nature  of  the  thing  combined.  The  idea  to  be  grasped 
and  clung  to  is  the  fact  that  it  is  not  trusts  that  make 
monopoly,  but  monopoly  that  makes  trusts.  The  evil 
springs  from  no  normal  condition,  but  altogether  from 
abnormal  adjustments.  It  does  not  depend  upon  mere 
combination;  it  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  inter- 
ests that  are  combined.  A  combination  of  fishermen,  for 
instance,  could  not,  merely  as  fishermen,  make  a  fishing 
trust.  They  have  no  monopoly.  Their  only  advantage 
would  be  their  fishing  skill,  and  equal  skill  could  soon  be 
acquired  by  others.  Even  with  the  advantages  of  such 
special  privileges  as  dockage  rights  and  transportation 
opportunities,  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  make  an 
invincible  fishing  trust.  An  attempt  to  form  a  camera 
trust  has  failed,  although  there  are  patents  to  buttress 


TRUST   EVOLUTION  119 

such  a  combination.  The  great  wall  paper  trust  was  onc« 
supposed  to  be  an  example  of  the  power  of  mere  combi- 
nation, but  it  was  compelled  by  outside  competition  to 
dissolve.  Instances  of  this  kind  might  be  multiplied  and 
in  the  future  doubtless  will  be.  The  latest  is  the  ship- 
ping trust,  which,  having  but  little  fundamental  monopoly 
power,  has  begun  to  totter.  The  cigar  trust  is  in  the 
same  general  category.  What  gives  power  to  the  cigar 
trust  is  similar  to  what  gave  power  for  a  time  to  the 
wall  paper  trust — its  trademarks ;  and  it,  too,  is  destined 
to  collapse.  So  long  as  individuals  or  corporations  pos- 
sess only  such  interests  as  are  freely  open  to  competition, 
they  can  exercise  no  oppressive  power.  To  hold  the  field 
to  themselves,  in  such  circumstances,  they  must  render 
and  continue  to  render  superior  service  to  all  comers. 

If,  while  doing  that,  a  combination  seems  to  injure  some 
people  by  displacing  employes  or  competing  houses,  the 
injury  is  not  attributable  to  the  combination.  For  if  men 
are  displaced  in  a  business  because  they  are  not  needed, 
and  so  suffer  for  lack  of  employment,  their  suffering  is 
due,  not  to  their  displacement,  but  to  the  fact  that  oppor- 
tunities for  employment  in  occupations  in  which  they 
really  are  needed  are  closed  or  narrowed  by  restrictive 
laws. 

With  such  combinations,  moreover,  there  is  a  limit  of 
efficiency  which  any  thoughtful  student  of  the  problem 
must  infer,  and  which  the  business  community  is  begin- 
ning to  detect.  I  have  already  adverted  to  it.  Up  to  a 
certain  point  there  is  economy  in  combination.  It  saves 
expense  in  many  ways.  But  that  point  reached,  the  sav- 
ing becomes  less  and  less  progressively  as  the  combination 
expands,  until  further  combination  ceases  to  be  economi- 
cal and  becomes  positively  wasteful  and  unprofitable. 


I20         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

In  some  degree  all  combinations  are  subject  to  this 
limitation,  because  all  are  to  some  extent  combinations  of 
interests  that  are  open  to  competition.  But  to  the  degree 
that  the  combination  is  of  monopoly  interests,  to  that 
degree  the  limitation  is  lifted.  A  combination  of  nothing 
but  monopoly  interests,  controlling  the  sources  of  sup- 
ply and  the  channels  of  delivery  for  imperative  demands, 
would  have  no  limit  and  would  be  invincible.  The  evil 
power  of  trusts  depends,  consequently,  upon  the  extent 
to  which  the  interests  they  consolidate  are  monopoly 
interests.  Though  a  combination  of  fishermen  could  not 
monopolize  the  fish  trade,  a  combination  of  fishing  ground 
monopolists  with  dock  monopolists  and  railroad  monop- 
olists, could  monopolize  it. 

The  correctness  of  this  analysis  is  confirmed  by  the 
history  of  the  Standard  Oil  trust.  By  railroad  privileges 
at  first  and  afterwards  by  a  pipe  line  from  the  oil  regions 
to  the  sea,  this  trust  has  dictated  terms  to  oil  consumers  at 
one  end  and  to  oil  producers  at  the  other.  It  is  further 
confirmed  by  the  story  of  the  all-absorbing  steel  trust. 
Not  merely  to  manufacture  steel  on  a  large  and  economi- 
cal scale  is  this  combination  formed.  That  is  only  inci- 
dental. It  is  a  function  which  might  be  relegated  to 
others  without  weakening  the  trust.  The  real  purpose 
is  to  combine  the  patent  monopolies  in  steel  production, 
with  monopolies  of  the  natural  sources  of  steel  supply. 
And  by  means  of  another  great  combination — that  of  the 
railroads,  to  be  controlled  ultimately  by  the  same  little 
coterie  that  controls  the  steel  trust — monopoly  of  trans- 
portation also  is  to  be  secured.  It  is  not  combination  for 
production  that  is  sought,  primarily ;  but  combination  of 
productive  opportunities.  These  trusts  are  not  organized 
to  do  things,  but  to  "do  folks." 


TRUST   EVOLUTION  121 

Make  a  simple  test  analysis  and  you  prove  it.  Imagine 
the  withdrawal  from  the  two  great  combinations,  the  steel 
trust  and  the  railroad  pool,  of  every  monopoly,  and  what 
would  become  of  those  combinations?  Suppose  the  iron 
mines  were  outside  the  pool.  Suppose  the  coal  mines 
were  out.  Suppose  there  were  no  patents  to  be  com- 
bined. Suppose  the  railroad  rights  of  way  belonged  to 
hostile  interests,  free  to  rack-rent  the  transportation  com- 
panies. Yet,  let  these  two  great  combinations  own  every- 
thing else.    What  power  would  they  have? 

Or,  to  put  the  same  idea  in  another  way,  suppose  the 
ore  mines,  the  coal  mines,  the  railroad  rights  of  way,  and 
the  patents,  all  belonged  to  one  trust;  while  the  steel 
works,  the  railroad  equipment,  the  machinery  at  the 
mines,  and  everything  else  of  a  competitive  nature  be- 
longing to  these  two  great  combinations,  were  owned  by 
another  trust.  What  would  be  their  relative  power? 
Would  not  the  latter  trust  be  as  a  pigmy  to  a  giant? 

Again:  Suppose  that  ownership  of  the  coal  and  the 
iron  mines  were  so  adjusted  that  they  could  not  be  monop- 
olized profitably  by  anybody.  Suppose  the  same  thing 
were  so  far  true  of  railroad  rights  of  way  that  every- 
body's transportation  facilities  were  on  a  level.  And  sup- 
pose the  steel-making  patents  had  expired.  Who,  then, 
would  care  a  picayune  whether  the  steel  and  railroad 
interests  combined  or  not?  Nobody.  It  would  in  that 
case  be  clear  to  everyone  that  these  combinations  would 
have  to  render  the  best  possible  service  to  the  public  or  be 
driven  out  by  combinations  that  would. 

All  this  is  evident  upon  a  little  reflection.  And  when 
perceived  it  almost  makes  one  impatient  with  the  divers 
cuticular  remedies  that  are  proposed  for  the  constitu- 
tional disease  that  evolves  the  trust. 


122         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Every  injurious  trust  is  built  upon  some  monopoly — 
upon  one  that  is  conferred  by  the  government  directly, 
or  upon  one  that  is  acquired  from  a  direct  beneficiary 
of  government.  Scores  upon  scores  of  little  monopolies, 
and  some  big  ones,  rest  upon  the  sub-letting  of  special 
privileges  by  railroad  monopolists.  Take  away  these 
monopolies,  and  trusts  will  take  themselves  away.  Monop- 
olies of  ore  mines,  of  salt  mines,  of  railroad  rights  of 
way,  of  territorial  privileges,  and  so  on,  fortified  by  tariffs 
which  protect  American  monopolies  from  the  competition 
of  foreign  monopolies — such  are  the  things,  and  such 
alone,  that  make  trusts  possible.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
trust  evil  is  a  normal  industrial  evolution,  in  any  other 
sense  than  it  is  true  that  typhoid  fever  is  a  normal  sani- 
tary evolution.  Typhoid  fever  is  not  a  product  of  whole- 
some conditions ;  it  is  a  product  of  diseased  conditions.  It 
is  a  physical  evolution  from  physical  disorder.  And  so 
with  the  trust  evil.  A  natural  evolution  this  certainly 
is,  but  not  a  natural  evolution  from  wholesome  industrial 
conditions.  It  is  a  natural  evolution  from  diseased 
industrial  conditions — a  social  evolution  from  social  dis- 
order. And  this  industrial  disease,  this  social  disorder, 
is  monopoly  privileges  created  and  fostered  by  law.  What 
the  germ  is  to  typhoid  fever,  monopoly  is  to  trusts. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  TRUST  AND  SOCIALISM 

HE  who  thinks  of  the  socialist  political  parties,  of 
socialist  speeches,  of  socialist  literature,  or  of  all 
these  combined,  as  socialism,  has  but  a  dim  perception  of 
some  of  the  most  important  phenomena  in  the  history 
of  his  own  time.  Though  socialist  organizations,  speeches 
and  literature  have  to  do  with  socialism,  they  are  no  more 
socialism  than  maps  are  geography,  or  mile  posts  the 
highway.  The  most  influential  school  of  socialists  regards 
socialism  as  a  social  evolution,  and  that  conception  of 
the  subject  is  being  impressively  confirmed  by  events.  It 
can  be  best  understood,  not  through  socialist  literature, 
for  there  is  no  gospel  of  socialism  and  its  literature  is 
a  bewildering  maze  of  confusions  and  contradictions,  but 
through  the  modern  phenomenon  of  trusts,  studied  in  the 
light  of  the  theory  of  historical  evolution. 

Not  that  the  trust  is  a  socialist  ideal.  Far  from  it.  In 
all  socialism  there  is  a  democratic  aspiration,  and  trusts 
are  not  democratic.  Yet  they  are  believed  by  socialists 
to  secrete  democratic  germs,  which  will  eventually  develop 
out  of  the  autocratic  trust  an  industrial  democracy,  some- 
what as  political  democracy  has  been  developed  out  of 
feudalism  and  monarchy. 

However  this  may  prove  to  be,  doubtless  the  economic, 
as  distinguished  from  the  ethical,  principles  of  socialism, 
are  already  in  process  of  more  or  less  imperfect  exem- 
plification by  the  trusts,  the  most  perfect  of  which  in 

123 


ia4        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

that  respect  is  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  men- 
tioned in  the  fifth  chapter  of  this  Part.  This  trust  owns 
not  only  the  natural  sources  of  production  upon  which 
it  depends,  but  also  all  the  related  artificial  machin- 
ery of  production  and  distribution.  It  is  a  gigantic 
socialistic  embryo.  So  at  least  it  distinctly  appears 
to  be  from  a  vivid  pen  sketch  by  Mr,  Ray  Stan- 
nard  Baker,*  a  sketch  which  is  valuable  as  a  social- 
istic study  because,  besides  being  vivid,  it  is  evidently 
a  true  account,  as  far  as  it  goes,  of  the  business  methods 
of  the  steel  trust. 

Mr.  Baker  describes  the  organization  of  the  steel  trust 
as  "a  republican  form  of  government,  not  unlike  that  of 
the  United  States,  with  a  president;  a  cabinet,  or  execu- 
tive committee,  which  is  likewise  a  supreme  court,  hav- 
ing practically  all  the  power  of  the  board  of  directors; 
a  treasury  department,  or  finance  committee;  a  legal 
department  (the  general  counsel)  ;  and  a  congress  (board 
of  directors),  elected  to  office  by  individual  voters  or 
stockholders." 

The  government  of  the  trust,  besides  being  republican 
in  form,  is  federal  in  principle ;  for,  writes  Mr.  Baker,  "it 
is  a  general  though  erroneous  impression  that  when  the 
steel  corporation  was  organized  all  of  the  ten  absorbed 
companies  lost  their  identity,  being  merged  in  a  single 
huge  concern,  managed  from  New  York  City.  But  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  is  rather  a  federation  of 
independent  companies,  a  combination  of  combinations, 
each  with  its  own  distinct  government,  officers,  sphere  of 
influence,  and  particular  products.  The  Carnegie  Steel 
Company,  for  instance,  is  still  independent  of  the 
Federal    Steel    Company,    and    yet    both    are    a    part 

*McClure's  Magazitie  for  November,  1901. 


THE   TRUST   AND   SOCIALISM    125 

of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation  in  the  same  way 
that  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois,  while  separate  States,  each 
with  its  own  government,  are  part  of  the  United  States." 

But  this  government  is  primarily  industrial,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  political.  Its  purpose  is  the  production 
and  distribution  of  steel  commodities,  from  the  ore  and 
the  coal  in  the  mine,  through  all  the  processes  of  manu- 
facture and  transportation,  to  the  finished  and  delivered 
article.  In  this  particular  it  differs  from  the  Socialist 
Commonwealth  only  in  the  fact  that  its  field  of  operations 
is  limited  to  the  steel  industry,  whereas  the  Socialist  Com- 
monwealth would  be  expected  to  monopolize  even  more 
completely  and  to  operate  even  more  perfectly,  all  branches 
of  industry. 

Still  in  analogy  to  the  theory  of  the  American  govern- 
ment, the  steel  trust  distinguishes  between  common  func- 
tions and  those  pertaining  to  the  constituent  companies 
respectively : 

"While  each  subsidiary  company  retains  the  entire  man- 
agement of  its  own  manufacturing  plants,  it  has  been  the 
policy  of  the  new  corporation  to  combine  in  great  general 
departments  those  factories  of  production  common  to  all 
the  companies.  For  instance,  most  of  the  subsidiary  com- 
panies owned  their  own  iron  mines,  their  own  coke  ovens, 
and  controlled  their  own  ships  on  the  lakes,  and  each 
had  a  department  to  care  for  these  interests.  Now  the 
ore  and  transportation  interests  are  gathered  in  one  great 
department." 

The  economy  effected  by  this  concentration  of  common 
interests  into  one  central  department  is  thus  described: 

"The  coke  interests,  the  export  department,  the  foreign 
offices  in  London,  and  certain  branches  of  the  sales  de- 
partments, are  each  grouped  under  a  single  head.    By  this 


126         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

method  a  single  agency  distributes  iron  ore,  coal  and  coke, 
between  the  various  plants  as  needed,  avoiding  cross  ship- 
ments, and  supplying  plants  always  from  the  nearest 
sources,  thereby  saving  freight  charges.  Much  of  the 
economy  of  production  depends  on  the  efficacy  of  distribu- 
tion. Formerly  serious  delays  resulted  from  the  inability 
to  obtain  vessel  tonnage  at  the  right  time,  or  to  load  the 
ships  with  the  right  kind  of  ore  when  wanted,  for  many 
companies,  while  owning  plenty  of  one  kind  of  ore,  were 
compelled  to  purchase  other  kinds  to  make  the  proper 
mixtures.  Under  the  new  system,  however,  the  splendid 
fleet  of  115  vessels  on  the  Great  Lakes  is  all  under  the 
control  of  one  man,  .  .  .  and  the  ore-distributing 
system  is  all  under  another  chief.  The  ships  can  thus 
be  directed  by  telegraph  to  the  ore-docks  in  Minnesota, 
Michigan  or  Wisconsin,  where  each  immediately  secures 
a  full  load  and  carries  it  to  the  dock  or  mill  where  that 
particular  kind  of  ore  is  most  needed.  .  .  .  Coke  and 
coal  are  distributed  much  in  the  same  manner  by  a  central 
department." 

Such  centralization  is  confined,  however,  as  already 
indicated,  to  operations  of  common  concern.  With  refer- 
ence to  functions  pertaining  to  the  constituent  companies 
individually,  the  impulse  of  competition  (more  definitely, 
perhaps,  emulation)  is  encouraged.  Mr.  Carnegie  had 
already  made  this  a  feature  of  his  company,  before  the 
federation.  He  encouraged  "friendly  rivalries  between 
his  plants,  spurring  them  on  with  rewards,  and  by  firing 
the  pride  of  accomplishment  he  succeeded  surprisingly  in 
adding  to  the  efficiency  of  his  force."  Following  Mr. 
Carnegie's  example,  the  steel  trust,  while  in  absolute  con- 
trol, and  consequently  able  to  insure  harmony  through  its 
central  authority,  has,  nevertheless,  so  adjusted  the  rela- 


THE  TRUST  AND   SOCIALISM    127 

tionships  of  the  constituent  companies  that  "one  com- 
pany buys  of  or  sells  to  another,  as  formerly,  and  the  bar- 
gains are  driven  just  as  shrewdly  as  ever,  each  president 
being  keenly  ambitious  to  make  a  good  showing  for  his 
company.  The  disputes  which  naturally  arise  are  settled 
by  the  executive  committee,  sitting  as  a  sort  of  supreme 
court." 

As  to  products  which  vary  with  the  producing  company, 
wide  latitude  is  allowed,  each  company  being  permitted  to 
drive  the  best  bargain  it  can  in  the  open  market.  But 
"in  cases  where  several  companies  produce  the  same  thing 
— steel  rails,  for  instance — they  agree  on  a  price  and 
appoint  the  same  agents  throughout  the  country." 

Not  only  are  economies  secured  by  this  system  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution,  but  every  department  of  the 
trust,  says  Mr.  Baker,  "runs  smoothly,  noiselessly." 

In  this  great  trust,  then,  we  have  an  example,  only 
partly  developed  economically  and  not  at  all  ethically,  but 
faithful  and  favorable  as  far  as  it  goes,  of  socialism  in  the 
concrete. 

To  perfect  this  system  economically,  with  reference  to 
socialist  ideals,  what  is  needed  is  that  the  trust  should 
encompass  all  great  industries  instead  of  only  about  two- 
thirds  of  only  one,  and  manage  them  in  substantially  the 
same  way.  To  perfect  it  ethically,  with  reference  to 
socialism,  what  is  needed  is  the  democratization  of  the 
trust,  so  that  all  who  work  in  it,  the  day  laborer  at  the 
bottom  as  well  as  the  great  captain  of  industry  at  the 
top,  shall  participate  equally  in  its  government  and  share 
equally  in  the  value  of  its  products. 

Whether  that  is  practicable  is  too  complex  a  question 
for  present  discussion.  One  industry  might  be  managed 
upon  this  plan  with  economic  success,  even  though  the 


128         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

plan  might  break  down  if  applied  to  all  industries.  So 
the  plan  might  work  under  a  plutocratic  system,  the  board 
of  directors  being  chosen  by  the  majority  of  shares,  when 
it  would  not  work  under  a  democratic  system,  the 
board  being  chosen  by  a  majority  of  the  workers. 
The  steel  trust  illustrates  the  character  but  does  not 
demonstrate  the  practicability  of  the  Socialist  Common- 
wealth. It  may  be  doubted,  too,  whether,  when  the  trusts 
had  monopolized  business,  the  employes  would  be  able  to 
democratize  trusts.  The  power  that  perfects  the  trust  is  a 
power  which  no  workmen,  other  than  the  specially  skilled, 
can  hope  to  cope  with  by  organization. 

Yet  there  is  scant  room  for  question  that  socialism  is 
the  goal  toward  which  the  trust  tends.  Those  socialists 
are  right  who  see  in  the  trust  phenomena  their  predicted 
socialist  evolution.  If  socialism  comes  at  all,  it  must 
come  in  one  of  two  ways:  either  by  the  absorption  of 
industries  by  government,  or  by  the  absorption  of  govern- 
ment by  industrial  agencies.  Both  tendencies  are  at 
work.  Government  is  reaching  out,  not  through  the  influ- 
ence of  socialist  parties,  however,  but  under  the  pressure 
of  grasping  private  interests,  and  in  the  form  of  protective 
tariffs,  subsidies,  and  the  like,  for  the  regulation  of  func- 
tions which  are  distinctly  individual.  Concurrently, 
trusts  are  reaching  out  for  the  control  of  government. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Mr.  Baker's  lucid  account  of 
the  steel  trust  without  seeing  in  that  organization  the  pos- 
sibilities and  prophecy  of  an  overmastering  governmental 
machine.  If  there  were  no  opposing  tendency,  it  could 
be  predicted  with  almost  absolute  certainty  that  the  trust 
would  at  no  distant  day  evolve  into  an  autocratic,  pluto- 
cratic, all-embracing  and  paternal  socialistic  state. 
Whether  this    state   would   in   turn   evolve   democratic 


THE   TRUST   AND   SOCIALISM    129 

socialism,  conceding  the  possibility  of  such  an  ideal, 
would  not  be  so  easy  to  foresee;  but  that  the  evolution 
will  reach  the  point  of  paternalism,  if  unobstructed,  is  as 
certain  as  any  human  prophecy  can  be. 

Fortunately,  however,  this  tendency  is  obstructed.  The 
sentiment  of  opposition  to  the  extension  of  government 
into  the  sphere  of  private  industry  is  not  dead.  During 
these  years  of  advancing  monopoly  and  imperialism  it  has 
been  sleeping;  but  now  it  is  awaking,  as  it  always  has 
and  always  will  whenever  autocratic  tendencies  gather 
momentum  and  begin  to  disclose  their  true  character. 
And  this  same  opposition  to  the  absorption  by  gov- 
ernment of  individual  functions  is  also  an  obstacle  to  the 
absorption  of  government  by  trusts.  The  tendency  of 
trusts  to  develop  a  socialistic  state  cannot  persist,  because 
the  only  thing  that  perpetuates  their  power  is  monopoly 
of  natural  opportunities  for  production.  The  steel 
trust,  for  instance,  is  cohesive  and  powerful,  not  because 
of  its  commercial  economies,  but  because  directly  and 
indirectly  it  monopolizes  ore  beds,  coal  mines  and  trans- 
portation terminals.  Abolish  these  monopolies,  and  the 
steel  trust  would  be  as  impotent  as  a  monarch  without 
the  power  of  taxation. 

This  very  simple  but  potent  truth  is  gaining  recogni- 
tion. Public  thought  is  being  influenced  by  it  more  and 
more.  It  is  crystallizing  a  popular  opposition  to  the 
development  of  the  trust  idea,  and  consequently  to  social- 
ism. It  is  the  key  to  the  economic  problem,  to  the  labor 
problem,  to  the  political  problem — in  a  word,  to  the 
social  problem.  And  it  is  destined  to  define  the  issue 
over  which  another  great  struggle  for  liberty  will  be 
made;  namely,  whether  we  shall  on  the  one  side  per- 
petuate monopolies  of  natural  sites  and  resources,  and  so 


I30         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

foster  trusts  and  promote  socialism ;  or  shall,  on  the  other, 
check  those  monopolies,  and  thereby  advance  and 
strengthen  the  cause  of  individual  liberty. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   TRUST   AND   THE   SINGLE   TAX 

AVERY  simple  illustration  of  the  trust  may  be  im- 
agined by  considering  the  hack  service  at  almost 
any  commodious  railway  station,  whether  in  city  or  coun- 
try. I  select  a  particular  one  for  the  sake  of  being  definite. 
Hackettstown  is  a  New  Jersey  station  on  the  Delaware, 
Lackawanna  &  Western  Railway,  where  the  station  yard  is 
large  enough  to  accommodate  many  more  hacks  than  are 
needed.  Several  hacks  carry  passengers  between  this  sta- 
tion yard  and  any  desired  place  in  the  town  at  the  uni- 
form charge  of  a  dime.  Were  more  exacted,  competition 
would  be  stimulated.  Realizing  this  possibility,  the  hack 
owners  conform  voluntarily  to  what  is  locally  regarded  as 
a  fair  toll.  The  business,  therefore,  is  regulated  by  com- 
petition— if  not  actual,  yet  potential. 

Consolidation  of  these  interests  might  effect  economies. 
If  so,  the  consolidation  would  be  beneficial  to  all  con- 
cerned. Patrons  would  get  better  service  and  pay  lower 
fares ;  and  if  displaced  employes  were  hurt  by  it,  their 
misfortune  would  be  due,  not  to  the  labor-saving  con- 
solidation of  Hackettstown  hack  interests,  but,  as  is  the 
case  with  the  introduction  of  labor-saving  machines,  to 
fundamental  legal  obstructions  to  business  in  general. 
The  consolidation  would  be  nothing  but  a  union  of  inter- 
ests in  hacks  and  horses,  a  kind  of  property  too  easily 
produced  in  abundant  quantities  to  be  monopolized.  Such 
unions  are  not  in  themselves  harmful.    If  they  were,  all 

131 


132         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

economizing  devices  would  be  harmful,  and,  following 
Tolstoy,  we  should  have  to  return  to  primitive  methods 
of  production. 

But  note  the  effect  were  the  railroad  company  to  con- 
fer upon  those  hack  owners  exclusive  rights  to  enter  the 
station  yard  with  hacks.  As  the  station  building  is  so 
situated  with  reference  to  the  public  highway  that  com- 
peting hackmen  could  not  satisfy  the  needs  of  passengers 
without  access  to  the  yard,  the  privileged  hack  owners 
would  control  the  business  as  a  monopoly.  Though  they 
still  competed  with  one  another,  they  would  be  shielded 
from  the  competition  of  outsiders.  What  if  they  consoU- 
date  now?  How  radical  the  difference!  The  consoH- 
dated  interests  would  be  more  than  interests  in  hacks  and 
horses.  They  would  comprise  exclusive  rights  of  entry 
into  the  station  yard.  And  therein  would  lie  the  evil 
power  of  this  local  hack  trust.  Freed  from  all  fear  of 
competition,  it  could  make  a  standard  of  service  to  suit 
itself,  and  regulate  fares  upon  the  basis  of  extorting  "all 
the  traffic  would  bear." 

This  illustration  is  so  far  typical  of  business  in  general 
as  to  indicate  the  point  at  which  the  evil  of  the  trust 
comes  in  to  bedevil  modern  industry.  That  point  is  not 
where  competitive  businesses  combine ;  it  is  where  compet- 
ing monopolies  come  into  the  combination.  When  really 
powerful  trusts  are  analyzed,  their  power  is  found  to  rest 
in  some  form  of  monopoly — in  some  species  of  privilege. 
Somewhere  in  every  evil  trust,  though  not  always  obvious, 
there  is  a  consolidation  of  exclusive  interests  analogous  to 
the  station  yard  monopoly  of  our  illustration. 

Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab  recognized  this  when  in  his 
testimony  before  the  Industrial  Commission  he  affirmed 
that  the  steel  trust,  of  which  he  was  manager,  absolutely 


TRUST   AND   SINGLE   TAX        133 

controls  80  per  cent,  of  the  iron  ore  deposits  of  this  coun- 
try, and  all  the  best  coking-coal  lands  known. 

Specifically,  the  monopoly  interests  upon  the  consolida- 
tion of  which  trusts  are  erected  are  numerous  and  vari- 
ous. They  consist  of  such  monopolies  as  railroad  rights 
of  way,  pipe-line  rights  of  way,  patented  inventions, 
water  privileges,  street  franchises,  mining  rights,  terminal 
sites,  and  so  on  into  a  long  catalogue.  But  most  of  them 
may  be  properly  classified  as  monopolies  of  land.  Min- 
ing rights  are  obviously  land  rights.  Railroad  and  pipe- 
line rights  of  way,  terminal  sites,  and  the  like,  are  evi- 
dently so. 

To  make  land  monopoly  the  mother  of  trusts,  however, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  trace  directly  to  land  monopoly 
every  special  privilege  that  may  not  obviously  spring  from 
that  source.  The  important  consideration  is  that  all 
monopolies  which  do  not  spring  from,  are  necessarily 
subordinate  to,  monopolies  of  land,  A  monopoly  of  iron 
mines,  for  instance,  confers  control  over  the  iron  industry 
in  all  its  ramifications,  including  all  its  minor  monopolies. 
That  control  may  be  limited  by  a  monopoly  of  rights  of 
way,  and  especially  of  necessary  terminal  points  for  the 
shipment  or  delivery  of  products  of  the  iron  industry. 
But  this  makes  no  difference  to  the  argument,  for  both 
monopolies  are  monopolies  of  land.  And,  if  these  two 
land  monopolies  be  united  in  one  trust,  that  trust  is 
unconquerable,  except  by  a  trust  that  monopolizes  still 
more  important  natural  sources  of  supply  or  still  more 
commanding  terminal  sites. 

In  yet  another,  a  more  subtle  and  therefore  more  effect- 
ive way,  evil  trusts  are  fostered  by  land  monopoly.  This 
is  through  general  speculation  in  land.  In  the  hope  of 
profiting  by  increase  in  land  prices,  every  one  who  can 


134         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

afford  to  invest  buys  land  where  he  thinks  it  may  rise 
in  value.  Most  of  the  land  so  bought  is  either  not  used 
at  all  or  only  partly  used.  It  cannot  be  easily  obtained  for 
use,  because  it  is  held  upon  speculation  at  excessive  prices. 
In  consequence  of  this  difficulty,  the  industrial  classes  are 
forced  into  a  glutted  labor  market,  like  cattle  into  a  cor- 
ral. As  all  processes  of  industry  depend  upon  land,  work- 
ers of  every  grade  are  huddled  together  begging  for 
some  kind  of  job.  Those  that  are  not  actually  in  the 
corral  are  in  mortal  fear  of  getting  into  it.  In  these 
circumstances,  the  industrial  classes  are  an  easy  prey  to 
whoever  has  a  job  to  give  them.  To  escape  the  corral, 
they  accept  any  terms  they  can  get.  They  cannot  con- 
tract in  freedom,  for  they  must  buy  a  chance  to  live.  The 
question  with  them  is  not  one  of  more  or  less  income,  but 
of  life  or  death.  Thus  the  monopoly  power  that  trusts 
acquire  from  ownership  of  land  is  multiplied  by  the  rela- 
tive weakness  of  their  landless  victims.  "The  destruction 
of  the  poor  is  their  poverty."  And  their  poverty,  as  well 
as  the  original  power  of  the  trusts,  is  rooted  in,  springs 
from,  and  is  strengthened  by  land  monopoly. 

This  monopoly  not  only  strengthens  the  trusts  by  weak- 
ening the  contracting  power  of  their  workmen ;  it  is  also 
the  fundamental  cause  of  the  suffering  which  all  classes 
that  eat  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  own  faces  are 
forced  to  endure  from  what  seems  to  them  the  "ravages" 
of  labor-saving  machinery  and  other  economizing  devices. 
The  only  radical  remedy,  therefore,  not  only  for  the  evil 
of  the  trust  but  also  for  the  evil  effects  of  what  ought  to 
be  an  unmixed  and  universal  good,  namely,  labor-saving 
methods,  is  the  abolition  of  land  monopoly. 

This  is  the  comprehensive,  because  the  radical  or  root 
remedy,    for    industrial    maladjustment,    which    Henry 


TRUST  AND   SINGLE   TAX        135 

George  proposed  to  apply  by  what  has  come  to  be  known 
by  the  name  of  "the  single  tax."  It  was  his  idea  to  con- 
tinue, in  lieu  of  all  other  taxes,  the  tax  we  already  impose 
upon  the  value  of  land — namely,  that  part  of  the  real 
estate  tax  which  is  measured  by  the  value  of  sites  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  value  of  improvements.  To  put  his 
proposition  in  another  form,  he  would  abolish  all  taxes 
except  the  one  which  is  measured  solely  by  land  values, 
trusting  to  the  resulting  increase  in  the  rate  of  that  single 
tax  to  transfer  from  land  monopolists  to  the  public  treas- 
ury the  annual  ground  rent,  potential  as  well  as  actual, 
of  all  kinds  of  land — mines  and  city  lots  as  well  as  agri- 
cultural land — each  allotment  paying  in  proportion  to  its 
value  as  mere  land,  irrespective  of  the  value  of  its  im- 
provements. By  this  means  land  monopoly  would  be 
abolished.  It  would  be  abolished  in  the  only  way  in  which 
land  monopoly  can  be  abolished  without  reviving  it  in 
new  forms  by  turning  the  state  into  a  monster  landlord 
of  unlimited  and  virtually  irresponsible  power.  For, 
while  it  would  effectually  abolish  the  monopoly  of  land, 
the  single  tax  would  preserve  private  possession  under 
individual  occupancy. 

If  this  principle,  the  principle  of  the  single  tax,  were 
fully  applied,  land  monopoly  would  evidently  be  impossi- 
ble. Vacant  city  lots  would  not  be  held  long  for  higher 
prices,  if  the  owner  had  to  pay  as  heavy  a  tax  as  the 
owner  of  improved  lots  having  an  equal  land  value. 
Farming  land  could  not  be  kept  out  of  use  by  the  thrift- 
less or  the  greedy,  nor  by  land-grant  railroads,  if  the 
unimproved  were  taxed  as  much  as  the  improved,  the 
locations  being  of  equal  value.  The  coal  and  ore  mines 
of  the  country  could  not  be  monopolized  and  closed 
against  mining,  if  coal  land  were  taxed  well  up  to  its 


136         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

market  value  whether  worked  or  not.  In  every  direction 
this  tax  would  put  fines  upon  land  monopolists,  thereby 
discouraging  land  monopoly  and  opening  to  general  use 
all  the  natural  opportunities  which  are  now  closed  by 
owners  who  expect  to  reap  a  harvest  of  higher  prices  in 
the  future. 

And  while  abolishing  land  monopoly,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  single  tax  would,  on  the  other,  abolish  all  fines 
upon  production,  thereby  releasing  the  great  body  of 
labor  from  the  corral  into  which  it  has  been  driven,  and 
causing  work  to  bid  for  men  instead  of  compelling  men 
to  bid  for  work. 

Different  kinds  of  cases  might  require  different  modes 
of  applying  the  single  tax  principle.  With  reference  to 
transportation,  when  right  of  way  and  mode  of  operation 
were  inseparable,  and  even  with  reference  to  some  kinds 
of  mines,  as  gold  or  silver  mines,  it  might  be  necessary,  in 
order  to  destroy  land  monopoly  as  to  them,  to  place  them 
directly  under  public  management.  Where  that  was  true, 
special  modes  of  applying  the  single  tax  principle  might 
be  adopted.  But  in  all  probability  little  more  would  be 
found  necessary  in  actual  experience  than  the  fiscal 
method  of  application  proposed  by  Henry  George,  which, 
like  the  single  tax  principle  itself,  is  also  known  as  "the 
single  tax."  At  all  events  this  method  would  be  efficient 
in  most  cases  and  with  the  most  vital  elements  of  the 
problem. 

But  the  question  recurs  in  more  concrete  form.  "How," 
it  is  often  asked,  "could  the  single  tax  benefit  the  small 
storekeeper,  the  small  manufacturer,  the  small  farmer, 
and  the  dependent  wage-worker?"  Since  large  farmers, 
with  the  advantage  of  improved  and  valuable  machinery, 
can  produce  at  lower  cost  than  the  small  farmer,  could 


TRUST   AND    SINGLE   TAX        137 

they  not  drive  him  out  of  business  ?  In  like  manner,  could 
not  the  department  store  with  its  vast  capital  drive  out 
of  business  the  small  storekeeper,  and  the  large  factory 
the  small  manufacturer?  How  could  the  single  tax  offset 
these  great  advantages  of  the  capitalist  farmers'  machin- 
ery over  the  small  farmers'  rude  methods,  and  those  of  the 
large  store  and  factory  over  the  small  one  ?  And  with  all 
these  small  employers  out  of  the  way,  why  couldn't  the 
large  ones  make  their  own  terms  with  wage  workers  ? 

This  question  assumes,  to  begin  with,  that  it  is  desirable 
to  perpetuate  small  modes  of  production,  like  small  farm- 
ing, small  manufacturing,  and  small  storekeeping,  in 
behalf  of  producers  on  a  small  scale.  That  is  not  neces- 
sarily so.  In  every  department  of  industry  in  which  pro- 
duction can  be  carried  on  with  greater  economy  of  labor 
on  a  large  scale  than  on  a  small  scale,  it  is  desirable  that 
production  on  the  small  scale  should  give  way.  Whether 
or  not  the  single  tax  would  permit  department  stores, 
mammoth  factories,  and  bonanza  farming  to  put  an  end 
to  small  storekeeping,  small  manufacturing,  and  small 
farming,  is  therefore  beside  the  question.  The  real  ques- 
tion is  whether  the  single  tax  would  secure  to  those  who 
now  keep  small  stores,  manage  small  factories,  do  small 
farming,  and  those  who  work  for  hire^  their  just  share 
in  the  benefits  of  the  change. 

Henry  George  had  no  expectation  of  interfering  by  the 
single  tax  with  normal  concentration  in  production.  On 
the  contrary,  he  expected  the  single  tax  to  encourage 
it.  But  he  expected  also  that  the  single  tax  would  open 
the  way  to  all  who  so  desired,  to  be  equal  partners  in 
production — equal,  that  is  to  say,  in  proportion  to  their 
contributions  of  labor.  He  expected,  in  other  words,  that 
the  single  tax  would  bring  about  in  the  field  of  production 


138         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

on  a  large  scale,  a  system  of  voluntary  coSperation;  or, 
to  use  his  own  language  in  "Progress  and  Poverty, '  that 
under  the  single  tax  "we  should  reach  the  ideal  of  the 
socialist,  but  not  through  governmental  repression." 

This  ideal  would  be  reached  through  the  radical  change 
in  the  distribution  of  wealth  which  the  single  tax  would 
effect.  The  system,  being  of  general  application,  would 
automatically  distribute  products  in  two  funds.  The  first 
fund  would  consist  of  the  distinguishable  earnings  of 
individuals ;  the  second,  of  the  rent  or  value  or  premiums 
for  exceptional  natural  and  communal  opportunities  for 
production.  Among  individual  workers,  the  first  fund 
would  be  divided  in  proportion  to  their  usefulness;  the 
other  fund  would  go  to  the  community  as  a  whole.  The 
natural  law  or  social  force  by  which  this  equitable  dis- 
tribution would  be  made,  is  free  competition,  which,  like 
air  pressure,  so  long  as  it  exerts  itself  not  in  one  direction 
but  in  all,  produces  equilibrium. 

To  those  who  understand  the  true  nature  of  free  com- 
petition, and  do  not  confound  it  with  the  monopolistic 
phenomena  of  the  present  day,  which  superficial  writers 
mistakenly  allude  to  as  "competition,"  it  is  perfectly  clear 
how  the  result  outlined  above  would  come  to  pass  under 
the  single  tax.  But  there  are  those  who  fail  to  grasp  the 
idea,  and  I  venture  a  suggestion. 

When  it  is  asked,  How  would  the  small  farmer,  the 
small  manufacturer,  the  small  storekeeper  and  the  wage- 
worker  fare  under  the  single  tax,  with  the  big  factory,  the 
bonanza  farm  and  the  department  store  ruling  the  roost? 
might  it  not  be  more  pertinent  to  ask,  How  the  depart- 
ment store,  the  great  factory,  and  the  bonanza  farmer 
would  fare,  if  they  could  get  no  one  to  work  for  them? 
Think  a  moment  of  the  effect  the  single  tax  would  have 


TRUST   AND   SINGLE   TAX        139 

upon  the  labor  market.  Everyone  who  monopolized  land 
that  other  people  wanted  to  use,  would  have  to  pay  a  tax 
upon  it  so  nearly  approximating  its  annual  value  that  he 
could  never  hope  to  recoup  the  tax  unless  he  used  the 
land  to  its  full  capacity.  He  would  therefore  so  use  it 
himself,  or  would  relinquish  it  to  some  one  else.  But  land 
cannot  be  used  on  any  but  a  primitive  scale  without  the 
employment  of  men.  Men  must  be  employed,  no  matter 
how  much  machinery  there  may  be.  Machinery  will 
not  work  itself.  Consequently,  everybody  who  owned 
land  would  either  have  to  hire  enough  men  to  work  it  to 
the  full,  or  give  it  up  to  somebody  who  would.  In  either 
case  the  effect  upon  the  labor  market  would  be  the  same, 
namely,  a  brisk  demand  for  labor  in  all  departments  and 
of  all  grades,  a  demand  that  would  constantly  exceed  the 
supply.  Jobs  would  be  hunting  for  men,  instead  of  men 
hunting  for  jobs.  The  inevitable  effect  of  that  would  be 
the  disbandment  of  the  army  of  the  unemployed,  increase 
of  wages,  and  the  consequent  independence  of  workmen. 
Workmen,  though  hired,  would  then  have  to  be  treated 
as  industrial  equals.  They  could  no  longer  be  treated  as 
serfs.  If  they  objected  to  their  treatment  by  one  em- 
ployer, they  could  easily  find  others;  and  if  they  ob- 
jected to  being  hired  by  any  employer,  they  could  them- 
selves become  cooperative  producers  on  a  large  scale, 
hiring  one  another. 

The  way,  therefore,  in  which  the  single  tax  would 
relieve  small  producers  and  dependent  wage-workers 
would  be  by  causing  favorable  conditions  in  two  respects. 
First,  by  so  increasing  the  effective  demand  for  labor  as 
to  keep  it  always  in  excess  of  the  supply ;  and,  second,  by 
clearing  the  way  for  successful  voluntary  co5perative 
organizations  among  producers. 


I40         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

The  one  thing  to  bear  in  mind  with  reference  to  the 
single  tax  principle  is  that  it  contemplates  the  abolition 
of  land  monopoly  and  the  consequent  freeing  of  industry 
from  all  monopoly  shackles  and  trammels.  It  would  ac- 
complish this  by  making  competition  free.  Competition 
being  the  antithesis  of  monopoly,  to  abolish  one  is  to 
establish  the  other.  To  make  competition  free,  therefore, 
is  to  apply  the  natural  remedy  to  the  ills  that  flow  from 
monopoly.  Now,  all  the  ills  which  seem  to  come  from 
normal  production  on  a  large  scale  are  caused  by  the  same 
monopolistic  circumstances  that  make  the  evil  trust  possi- 
ble. To  get  rid  of  them,  we  must  adopt  the  same  remedy 
that  is  required  for  the  trust.  Free  competition  must  be 
established. 

Whoever  will  consider  what  free  competition  means, 
will  realize  the  beneficently  progressive  character  of 
the  effects  that  would  be  produced  by  the  introduction  of 
a  principle  like  that  of  the  single  tax,  which  is  simply  an 
effective  method  of  unshackling  competition.  With  com- 
petition freed  and  monopoly  abolished  no  one  could  fail 
to  secure  his  equitable  share  in  the  benefits  of  social 
growth.  To  all  such  the  new  modes  of  production  which 
were  more  prolific  and  required  less  labor,  would  be  wel- 
comed as  a  boon.  It  is  the  operation  of  the  principle  of 
monopoly,  not  of  free  competition,  that  makes  them  now 
a  menace.  If  the  great  factory,  the  department  store, 
capitalistic  farming,  or  any  other  normal  species  of  large 
production  is  a  menace  to  any  industrial  class,  it  is  not  be- 
cause such  method  is  in  itself  bad,  but  because  the 
injured  class  is  divested  of  its  competing  power. 
Restore  that  power  by  abolishing  monopoly  through  mak- 
ing competition  free,  and  special  difficulties  of  adjustment 
which  now  seem  insuperable  obstacles,  would  prove  to  be 


TRUST   AND    SINGLE   TAX        141 

the  merest  shadows  in  the  path.  What  labor  of  all  grades 
needs  is  not  to  be  helped  but  to  be  freed.  Being  freed,  it 
would  help  itself.  It  can  be  freed  only  by  abolishing  the 
monopoly  of  land,  for  land  is  the  native  element  of 
labor. 

By  means  of  the  single  tax  principle  the  abolition  of 
land  monopoly  can  be  fully  accomplished.  By  means  of 
the  single  tax  method  it  can  be  far  advanced.  Under  this 
simple  land  reform,  sound  in  economics  and  unassailable 
in  morals,  no  one  could  hold  any  kind  of  land  out  of  use 
without  suffering  serious  and  continual  loss.  Land  would 
have  to  be  used,  and  be  well  used,  or  be  abandoned.  There 
would  be  no  profit  in  mere  ownership.  That  goal  being 
reached — indeed,  long  before  it  had  been  fully  reached — 
trade  having  meanwhile  and  by  the  same  method  been 
freed  by  the  abolition  of  commercial  and  industrial  taxes, 
and  of  highway  obstacles,  the  benefits  of  economic  im- 
provement would  be  generally  diffused  and  the  evil  spirit 
of  the  trust  would  be  exorcised.  With  the  annual  value 
of  special  landed  advantages  applied  to  common  use  and 
no  longer  retained  by  private  owners ;  with  taxes  on  in- 
dustry thus  made  unnecessary,  and  consequently  abol- 
ished; with  highways  freed  from  special  privilege;  with 
unused  land  everywhere  made  freely  accessible,  and  the 
barriers  of  the  industrial  corral  thus  broken  down;  with 
demand  for  productive  work  thereby  made  to  exceed  sup- 
ply, and  through  the  free  interplay  of  all  the  economic 
forces  of  consumption  and  production  perpetually  to 
maintain  that  excess, — with  these  demonstrable  effects  of 
the  single  tax  realized,  there  would  be  no  more  possibility 
of  subjugating  labor  and  monopolizing  business  with  pa- 
per agreements,  than  of  holding  back  the  waters  of  Ni- 
agara with  a  paper  dam. 


PART      FIVE 


POLITICO-ECONOMIC   PRINCIPLES 


The  basic  principle  of  Economics,  of  the  art  of  ordering  the 
social  relations  of  mankind,  may  then  be  summed  up  in  the  one 
word  Justice. 

—Lewis  H.  Berens,  in  "Toward  the  Light." 


Are  there  no  slaves  to-day?    While  we  sit  here  at  play, 
Have  we  no  brothers  in  adversity? 

None  sorry  nor  oppressed,  who  without  hope  or  rest 
Must  toil  and  have  no  pleasure  in  their  toil? 

These  are  your  slaves  and  mine.    Where  is  the  right  divine 
Of  idlers  to  encumber  God's  good  soil? 

There  is  no  man  alive,  however  he  may  strive, 
Allowed  to  own  the  work  of  his  own  hands. 

Landlords  and  water  lords  at  all  the  roads  and  fords, 
Taking  their  toll,   imposing  their  commands. 

— Bliss   Carman. 


Not  ermine  clad,  nor  clothed  in  state. 
Their  title  deeds  not  yet  made  plain; 

But  waking  early,  toiling  late, 
The  heirs  of  all  the  earth  remain. 

Some  day,  by  laws  as  fixed  and  fair 
As  guide  the  planets  in  their  sweep, 

The  children  of  each  outcast  heir 
The  harvest  fruits  of  time  shall  reap. 

Some  day  without  a  trumpet's  call. 

This  news  shall  o'er  the  earth  be  blown: 
The  heritage  comes  back  to  all ; 
The  myriad  monarchs  take  their  own. 

— Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 
144 


Grimly  the  same  spirit  looks  into  the  law  of  Property,  and 
accuses  men  of  driving  a  trade  in  the  great  boundless  Providence 
which  had  given  the  air,  the  water,  and  the  land  to  men  to  use 
and  not  to  fence  in  and  monopolize. — ("The  Times.")  I  cannot 
occupy  the  bleakest  crag  of  the  White  Hills  or  the  Allegheny 
Range,  but  some  man  or  corporation  steps  up  to  me  to  show  me 
that  it  is  his. — ("The  Conservative.")  Touch  any  wood,  or  field, 
or  house  lot  on  your  peril ;  but  you  may  come  and  work  in  ours 
for  us,  and  we  will  give  you  a  piece  of  bread. — ("The  Conserv- 
ative.") Of  course,  whilst  another  man  has  no  land,  my  title  to 
mine,  your  title  to  yours,  is  at  once  vitiated. — ("Man  the  Re- 
former.") 

— Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Properly  speaking,  the  land  belongs  to  these  two :  To  the 
Almighty  God;  and  to  all  his  Children  of  Men  that  have  ever 
worked  well  on  it,  or  that  shall  ever  work  well  on  it.  No  gener- 
ation of  men  can  or  could,  with  never  such  solemnity  and  effort, 
sell  Land  on  any  other  principle :  it  is  not  the  property  of  any 
generation. 

— Thomas  Carlyle,  in  "Past  and  Present"  Book  III,  Chapter 
VIII. 

To  any  plain  understanding  the  right  of  property  is  very  simple. 
It  is  the  right  of  ma.i  to  possess,  enjoy,  and  transfer,  the  sub- 
stance and  use  of  whatever  he  has  himself  created.  This  title 
is  good  against  the  world;  and  it  is  the  sole  and  only  title  by 
which  a  valid  right  of  absolute  private  property  can  possibly 
vest.  But  no  man  can  plead  any  such  title  to  a  right  of  property 
in  the  substance  of  the  soil. 

— James  Fintan  Lalor,  in  "The  Irish  Felon"  July  8,  1848. 


It  is  easy  to  persuade  the  masses  that  the  good  things  of  this 

world  are  unjustly  divided — especially  when  it  happens  to  be  the 

exact  truth. 

— Froude's  "Caesar." 

I4S 


To  affirm  that  a  man  can  rightfully  claim  exclusive  owner- 
ship in  his  own  labor  when  embodied  in  material  things,  is  to 
deny  that  any  one  can  rightfully  claim  exclusive  ownership  in 
land. — ("Progress  and  Poverty,"  Book  VII,  Ch.  I.)  So  far  from 
the  recognition  of  private  property  in  land  being  necessary  to  the 
proper  use  of  land,  the  contrary  is  the  case.  Treating  land  as 
private  property  stands  in  the  way  of  its  proper  use.  Were  land 
treated  as  public  property  it  would  be  used  and  improved  as  soon 
as  there  was  need  for  its  use  or  improvement,  but  being  treated 
as  private  property,  the  individual  owner  is  permitted  to  prevent 
others  from  using  or  improving  what  he  cannot  or  will  not  use 
or  improve  himself. —  (Same,  Book  VIII,  Ch.  I.)  We  should 
satisfy  the  law  of  justice,  we  should  meet  all  economic  require- 
ments, by  at  one  stroke  abolishing  all  private  titles,  declaring  all 
land  public  property,  and  letting  it  out  to  the  highest  bidders 
in  lots  to  suit,  under  such  conditions  as  would  sacredly  guard 

the   private    right    to    improvements But    such    a 

plan,  though  perfectly  feasible,  does  not  seem  to  me  the  best. 
Or  rather  I  propose  to  accomplish  the  same  thing  in  a  simpler, 
easier,  and  quieter  way,  than  that  of  formally  confiscating  all  the 
land  and  formally  letting  it  out  to  the  highest  bidders.  .... 
We  already  take  some  rent  in  taxation.  We  have  only  to  make 
some  changes  in  our  modes  of  taxation  to  take  it  all.  What  I, 
therefore,   propose    ....    is — to   appropriate   rent   by   taxation. 

Now,  inasmuch  as  the  taxation  of  rent,  or  land  values, 

must  necessarily  be  increased  just  as  we  abolish  other  taxes,  we 
may  put  the  proposition   into  practical   form  by  proposing — to 

ABOLISH    ALL   TAXATION    SAVE    THAT    UPON    LAND   VALUES. —  (Same, 

Book  VIII,  Ch.  II.) 

— Henry  George. 


Hither,  ye  blind,  from  your  futile  banding! 

Know  the  rights  and  the  rights  are  won. 
Wrong  shall  die  with  the  understanding. 

One  truth  clear,  and  the  work  is  done. 
Nature  is  higher  than  Progress  or  Knowledge 

Whose  need  is  ninety  enslaved  for  ten. 
My  word  shall  stand  against  mart  and  college : 

The  planet  belongs  to  its  living  men ! 

— "Liberty,"  by  John  Boyle  O'Reilly. 
1.46. 


CHAPTER  I 

POLITICAL  ECONOMY  A  SCIENCE  OF  TEND- 
ENCIES 

TO  the  billowy  sea  of  economic  phenomena  there  is  a 
mean  level,  analogous  to  that  of  the  terrestrial  ocean, 
The  mean  level  of  the  ocean  is  what  its  level  would  be 
if  there  were  no  tides  nor  waves.  It  is  the  level  at  which 
the  tides  equilibrate,  and  toward  which  wave  crests  fall 
and  wave  hollows  rise.  This  common  level  to  which  all 
undulations  tend,  affords  a  stable  basis  for  calculation. 
No  one  would  think  of  objecting  to  it  because  the  waves 
throw  up  higher  crests  and  hollow  out  lower  depressions. 
Nor  would  anyone  for  that  reason  discredit  generaliza- 
tions that  depend  upon  it.  No  one,  for  instance,  would 
set  up  the  fact  that  some  ocean  waves  rise  higher  than  the 
Hudson  river,  to  discredit  the  conclusion  that  the  Hudson 
river  must  empty  into  the  ocean  because  its  mean  level 
is  higher  than  the  ocean's.  Yet,  with  reference  to  political 
economy,  in  which  the  mean  level  of  the  ocean  has  its 
perfect  analogue,  just  such  objections  are  gravely  raised. 
Political  economy,  which  is  simply  the  social  economy 
of  mankind  as  distinguished  from  the  personal  economy 
of  individual  men,  is  a  science  of  tendencies.  So  under- 
stood, it  is  an  exact  science.  Just  as  the  mean  level  of 
the  ocean  may  be  exactly  ascertained,  though  the  waves 
rise  and  fall  in  a  way  to  defy  calculation,  so  the  mean 
level  of  economic  undulations  may  be  exactly  determined, 
notwithstanding   the    number,    variety,    uncertainty   and 

147 


148         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

complexity  of  individual  transactions.  But  there  are 
students  of  economic  science  who  ignore  this,  and  reject 
sound  economic  generalizations,  even  such  as  would  ap- 
pear to  the  untutored  to  be  axiomatic,  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  they  are  contradicted  by  some  transitory 
economic  phenomenon.  It  is  as  if  the  greater  height  of  a 
particular  wave,  or  the  deeper  depression  between  two 
waves,  were  cited  to  show  that  the  mean  level  of  the 
ocean  is  a  mere  assumption  which  facts  disprove. 

A  familiar  example  of  this  species  of  perversity  is  the 
denial  by  some  economists  that  cost  of  production  de- 
termines the  value  of  products.  Particular  products  are 
instanced,  the  value  of  which  is  conceded  or  shown  to  be 
very  much  above  or  below  the  cost  of  their  production, 
and  also  of  their  reproduction.  This  seems  to  invalidate 
the  generalization,  but  it  does  nothing  of  the  kind.  Such 
instances,  like  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  are  only  undula- 
tions. At  the  mean  level  of  economic  phenomena,  the 
axiomatic  truth  still  holds  good,  that  cost  of  production 
determines  the  value  of  products.  Trade  being  unob- 
structed, no  kind  of  production  can  be  carried  on  long 
with  the  value  of  products  either  above  or  below  their 
cost.  If  their  value  remained  belov/  cost,  their  produc- 
tion would  cease  for  lack  of  remuneration ;  if  it  staid 
above  cost,  competition  would  set  in  and  draw  off  pur- 
chasers. Whatever  the  undulations  in  value  may  at  any 
time  happen  to  be,  the  cost  of  products  does  in  general  de- 
termine the  value  of  products. 

Another  example  of  the  disposition  to  discredit  sound 
general  principles  in  political  economy  by  reference  to 
particular  economic  undulations,  is  connected  with  the 
incidence  of  taxes.  When  levied  upon  a  product  of  cur- 
rent labor,  taxes  are  found  to  enhance  the  price  of  the 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  149 

product,  thus  shifting  the  burden  of  the  taxation  from 
the  maker  or  seller  of  the  taxed  product  to  its  last  buyer 
or  consumer.  The  general  principle  consequently  inferred 
is  that  taxes  on  labor  products  are  borne  by  consumers. 
But  this  generalization  is  often  denied  because  there  are 
instances  in  conflict  with  it;  as  for  example,  that  stamp 
taxes  on  proprietary  medicines  are  not  always  added  to 
the  price.  Yet  that  denial  is  only  an  instance  of  disputing 
the  mean  level  by  measuring  the  altitude  of  a  wave  crest, 
A  one-cent  stamp  tax  upon  a  dollar  bottle  of  medicine 
might  not  be  added  to  the  price.  But  this  proves  nothing 
except  that  in  that  instance  the  tax  is  too  small  to  produce 
its  normal  effect.  A  dollar  stamp  tax  upon  a  dollar  bottle 
of  medicine  would  certainly  express  itself  in  the  price. 
So  would  a  tax  very  much  less  than  a  dollar.  And  if  the 
proprietary  medicine  happened  to  be  subject  to  keen  com- 
petition, even  so  small  a  tax  as  one  cent  would  be  shifted 
to  the  final  buyer. 

Any  tax  upon  products,  however  Hght  it  may  be,  has  a 
tendency  to  increase  their  price,  just  as  any  pressure  upon 
a  wall  has  a  tendency  to  topple  it  over.  Whether  the 
tendency  produces  its  natural  effect  must  depend  in  the 
one  case,  as  in  the  other,  upon  such  circumstances  as  its 
own  persistence  and  the  resistance  it  meets.  When  a  tax 
is  high  enough  on  products  to  leave  the  producers  no 
remuneration  for  their  work,  the  price  must  go  up  or 
production  must  cease.  Men  will  not  produce  for  nothing. 
Though  some  taxes  on  some  products  may  not  for  some 
time  be  shifted  to  consumers  through  higher  prices,  it 
is  nevertheless  absolutely  true  that  at  the  mean  level  of 
economic  phenomena,  taxes  on  current  production  are 
shifted  from  producers  to  consumers,  just  as  in  the  specific 
instances  of  telegraph  tolls  and  express  charges,  during 


ISO         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

the  war  with  Spain,  the  one-cent  internal  revenue  stamp 
tax  was  shifted  from  the  corporations  to  the  persons  who 
sent  messages  and  shipped  packages. 

Still  another  sound  generalization,  probably  the  most 
important  in  the  whole  range  of  political  economy,  is  often 
disputed  with  no  better  reason  that  that  it  is  contra- 
dicted by  some  undulation  or  other  upon  the  restless  sur- 
face of  economic  phenomena.  It  is  the  simple  but  ex- 
ceedingly luminous  truth  that  demand  for  consumption 
determines  the  direction  in  which  labor  will  be  expended 
in  production.  If,  for  illustration,  consumers  increase  the 
demand  for  bread  and  lessen  the  demand  for  beef,  pro- 
ducers will  quickly  respond  by  diverting  some  of  their 
energies  from  beef-making  to  bread-making.  Especially 
impressive  illustrations  of  this  great  economic  truth  are 
observable  when  some  fashionable  product,  such  as  hoop- 
skirts  once  were,  goes  out  of  fashion.  The  expenditure 
of  labor  in  the  direction  of  producing  that  article  ceases 
at  once.  Cessation  of  demand  causes  cessation  of  pro- 
duction. On  the  other  hand,  when  a  new  product  comes 
into  general  use,  as  the  bicycle  or  the  automobile,  labor 
turns  in  the  direction  of  producing  it  in  quantity  and 
quality  to  meet  the  demand  of  consumers.  These  in- 
stances exemplify  in  a  marked  way  the  principle  that 
demand  for  consumption  determines  the  direction  of  labor 
in  production.  The  same  principle  operates  when  the 
change  is  not  so  marked.  Any  variation  in  demand  for 
consumption  tends  to  cause  a  corresponding  variation  of 
the  direction  in  which  labor  is  expended  in  production. 

But  this  almost  obtrusive  principle  is  often  denied  or 
ignored,  because  in  some  industries  the  producer  has  had 
to  create  a  demand  for  his  products.  From  that  fact  it 
is  argued  that,  in  those  cases  at  any  rate,  the  direction  of 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  151 

production  has  determined  the  demand  for  consumption, 
and  the  principle  been  thus  reversed. 

Such  cases  do  not  rise  to  the  dignity  even  of  exceptions 
to  a  general  rule.  Though  the  producer  does  solicit  con- 
sumers, his  production  is  on  the  whole  only  in  response 
to  demand,  even  though  he  has  himself  stimulated  the 
demand  into  activity.  It  was  many  years  after  some 
bicycle  manufacturers  began  to  whip  up  demands  for  the 
"wheel"  that  a  great  demand  set  in ;  but  it  is  evident  that 
upon  the  mean  level  of  economic  phenomena  it  is  demand 
for  bicycles  that  turns  labor  to  their  production  or  away 
from  it,  and  not  their  production  that  makes  consumers 
demand  them,  nor  a  decline  in  production  that  causes  de- 
mand to  fall  off. 

It  is  similar  with  the  accumulation  of  goods  in  stores 
in  advance  of  the  actual  demand  for  them.  Though  this 
seems  like  an  instance  of  production  causing  demand,  it 
is  in  fact  a  splendid  instance  of  demand  causing  pro- 
duction. The  fact  that  particular  goods  are  produced  in 
advance  of  particular  demand  is  immaterial.  That  is 
only  an  undulation  on  the  surface  of  economic  phenomena. 
They  are  produced  in  reliance  upon  a  demand  which 
experience  has  proved  to  be  constant.  Particular  goods 
in  great  quantity  and  variety  are  continually  produced  to 
Chicago  in  advance  of  the  particular  demands  of  Chicago 
consumers.  But  this  is  not  because  production  determines 
demand.  It  is  because  Chicago  is  known  to  be  a  center 
to  which  consumers  come  to  satisfy  their  demands.  It 
is  demand  for  goods  at  Chicago  that  brings  goods  there ; 
not  their  being  there  that  makes  the  demand.  Goods 
are  never  produced  in  great  quantity  and  variety  to 
prairie  hamlets  in  expectation  of  creating  a  demand  for 
them  there.     Since  the  usual  demand  at  hamlets  is  for 


152         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

a  few  goods  of  meager  variety,  only  a  few  simple  goods 
are  produced  to  the  hamlet.  It  is  the  character  of  the 
constant  demand  for  consumption  that  determines  the 
production,  on  the  one  hand,  of  great  storehouses  of 
goods  to  a  Chicago,  and  on  the  other  of  small  supplies  to 
cross-roads  stores. 

That  demand  for  consumption  determines  the  direc- 
tion in  which  labor  will  be  expended  in  production  is  an 
indisputable  truth.  Any  instance  which  apparently  con- 
tradicts it  is  either  no  contradiction  at  all,  or  is  analogous 
to  a  rolling  wave  that  rises  above  or  sinks  below  the 
mean  level  of  the  ocean. 

The  absorption  of  the  pecuniary  benefits  of  material 
progress  by  land  values,  is  yet  another  mean  level  prin- 
ciple of  political  economy  to  which  undulatory  economists 
object.  When  and  where  land  is  monopolized,  the  pecun- 
iary benefits  of  local  progress  must  add  to  local  land 
values ;  and  ultimately  local  land  values  will  altogether 
measure  these  benefits  as  compared  with  the  benefits  other 
localities  have  to  offer.  Instances  of  the  truth  of  this 
principle  are  abundant,  but  no  experimental  demonstra- 
tion is  really  needed.  Any  celestial  visitor  who  had  never 
heard  of  political  economy,  of  land,  of  land  values,  or  of 
material  progress,  but  whose  logical  machinery  was  in- 
tact, could  reason  it  out.  Given  a  community  in  which  all 
the  land  is  monopolized,  so  that  no  one  can  enjoy  any  of 
the  benefits  of  living  or  working  there  without  the  con- 
sent of  some  local  landowner,  obtainable  only  at  a  price 
in  competition,  and  it  is  inevitable  that  any  advantages 
which  that  community  has  to  offer  will  be  charged  for 
by  the  landowners  in  higher  rents  and  higher  selling 
prices  for  land,  and  that  ultimately  this  charge  will  come 
to  equal  the  pecuniary  advantages  of  living  or  working  in 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  153 

that  community.  This  principle  is  so  evidently  universal 
that  it  must  apply  not  only  to  a  little  community  but  to 
the  whole  world.  Yet  it  also  is  a  principle  which  has 
been  discredited  in  some  minds  by  some  economic  undula- 
tion or  other. 

Such  economic  phenomena  as  the  fall  of  farm  land 
values  in  old  England  and  New  England  are  frequently 
but  quite  mistakenly  referred  to  as  having  completely 
done  away  with  the  principle.  While  it  may  be  true  that 
these  values  have  fallen  as  compared  with  what  they 
were  a  few  years  ago,  it  is  not  true  that  they  have  fallen 
as  compared  with  what  they  were  300  years  ago.  We 
therefore  mistake  a  fluctuation  for  a  tendency,  an  undula- 
tion for  the  mean  level,  if  we  assume  that  these  tem- 
porary depressions  of  value  in  recent  years  are  in  con- 
tradiction of  the  general  principle  that  land  values  absorb 
the  pecuniary  benefits  of  progress. 

Moreover,  and  this  is  the  more  important  consideration, 
though  some  land  values  have  fallen  in  some  places,  other 
land  values  have  risen  in  other  places.  Before  the  Eng- 
lish and  New  England  farm-land  values  declined,  Dakota 
and  Manitoba  farm-land  values  were  at  zero.  These  have 
risen  as  the  others  have  fallen,  and  manifestly  in  greater 
degree.  Likewise,  as  farm-land  values  have  fallen  or 
remained  stationary,  town  values  and  mine  values  have 
risen  enormously.  The  test  of  the  principle  is  not  whether 
land  values  for  certain  purposes  or  in  certain  places  have 
risen  or  fallen.  That  test  would  determine  nothing  but 
undulations.  The  real  question  is  whether  land  values 
have  risen  or  fallen  on  the  whole.  That  is  where  the 
mean  level  lies.  In  fact  land  values  as  a  whole  have 
risen  wonderfully  within  the  past  fifty  years.  There  is 
but  little  land  now  in  all  the  civilized  world  which  is  not 


154         ETHICS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

worth  as  much  as  it  was  half  a  century  ago;  and  there  is 
much  that  has  multiplied  in  value  a  himdred,  a  thousand, 
or  ten  thousand  fold. 

Even  if  land  values  have  not  yet  absorbed  all  the 
pecuniary  benefits  of  civilization,  their  tendency  to  do  so 
is  manifest;  and  in  so  far  as  they  fall  short  of  it,  the 
explanation  lies  plainly  in  the  fact  that  the  monopoliza- 
tion of  the  earth  is  not  yet  complete. 

One  very  remarkable  respect  in  which  economists  ig- 
nore the  mean  level  of  political  economy,  while  they  con- 
centrate attention  upon  undulations,  remains  to  be  consid- 
ered. It  is,  however,  more  interesting  than  important ;  in 
which  respect  it  diflrers  from  the  other  instances.  I  refer 
to  their  caviling  over  what  is  called  "unearned  increment." 

The  term  may  not  be  felicitous,  but  it  roughly  describes 
increase  in  land  values.  Since  land  values,  unlike  most 
other  values,  tend  to  increase  with  advancing  civilization, 
the  increase  is  referred  to  as  an  "increment" ;  and  as  they 
are  not  earned,  wherein  also  they  differ  from  other  values, 
the  increment  is  called  "unearned."  Hence,  "unearned  in- 
crement." It  would  be  futile  now,  and  is  altogether  need- 
less, to  quarrel  with  the  infelicity  of  this  term.  For  all 
practical  purposes  it  is  good  enough ;  and  it  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  directing  attention  to  the  fact  that  owners 
of  land  get  a  value  which  they  do  not  earn.  The  injustice 
of  that  is  instinctively  recognized,  and  has  suggested  the 
propriety  of  taking  the  "unearned  increment"  of  land  for 
common  use,  upon  the  theory  that  "unearned"  values 
are  rightly  common  property. 

So  effective  is  this  suggestion,  that  special  pleaders 
for  land-monopoly  are  exceedingly  cautious  about  making 
frontal  attacks  upon  it.  Preferring  flank  movements, 
they  admit  that  land  does  take  on  an  "unearned  incre- 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  155 

ment  of  value;  but  they  assert  that  this  is  unimportant 
because  other  things  besides  land  do  the  same.  And 
from  that  they  argue  that  the  "unearned  increment"  of 
land  cannot  fairly  be  made  a  common  fund  unless  all 
other  "unearned  increments"  are  similarly  treated.  Sup- 
posing that  to  be  impossible  or  unjust,  they  snap  their 
fingers  triumphantly  and  shout,  "Check!"  or  maybe, 
"Check  mate!"  Here  is  a  charming  example  of  undula- 
tory  economics. 

One  class  of  illustrations  on  which  these  special  plead- 
ers dwell,  comprises  such  unique  things  as  rare  coins  and 
old  books  and  pictures.  But  the  increasing  value  of  such 
objects  has  no  more  relation  to  political  economy  than 
your  grandmother's  portrait  has  to  household  economy 
or  her  wedding  slippers  to  the  shoe  trade. 

Another  favorite  illustration  is  the  diamond  found  in 
the  street.  The  finder  does  not  labor;  for,  though  there 
is  exertion  in  his  stooping  to  pick  up  the  diamond,  it  is 
wholly  disproportionate  to  the  value  of  the  stone.  This 
illustration  is  quite  pointless.  There  is  no  "increment" 
of  value,  none  whatever,  to  a  lost  diamond  which  has 
been  found.  Its  value  is  no  more  after  the  finding  than 
before  the  losing.  Such  value  as  the  finder  acquires  is 
only  that  which  the  loser  lost.  The  finder  truly  comes 
into  possession  of  value  without  earning  it;  but  the  loser 
owns  that  value,  and  if  he  claims  it  the  law  will  justly 
restore  it  to  him. 

A  far  better  illustration  of  the  same  point  was  furnished 
some  years  ago  by  a  newspaper  report  of  a  Western  law- 
suit. On  a  certain  Western  farm,  according  to  this 
report,  an  aerolite  dropped  one  night  and  sunk  into  the 
ground.  A  wayfarer  who  had  seen  it  fall,  dug  up  the 
aerolite  and  sold  it  to  a  college  for  $250.    His  labor  was 


156         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

so  slight,  in  comparison  with  that  price,  that  it  may  be 
disregarded  for  the  purposes  of  this  illustration.  The 
wayfarer,  therefore,  would  appear  to  have  been  the  owner 
of  $250  of  "unearned  increment"  to  aerolite.  But  not  so. 
Before  the  payment  the  owner  of  the  farm  where  the 
aerolite  had  fallen  put  in  an  appearance,  claiming  the 
money;  and  the  courts  decided  that  it  belonged  to  him 
and  not  to  the  wayfarer.  They  reasoned,  quite  correctly, 
that  the  aerolite  became  part  of  the  land  as  soon  as  it 
fell.  So  this  $250,  instead  of  being  an  "unearned  in- 
crement" to  aerolite,  was  an  "unearned  increment"  to 
land.  It  is  so  with  nearly  all  "unearned  increments." 
At  the  mean  level  of  economic  phenomena  they  attach  to 
land. 

As  with  the  Western  aerolite  so  would  it  be  virith  dia- 
monds found  where  nature  had  left  them.  If  you  find  a 
diamond  in  its  natural  state  on  a  landowner's  premises, 
the  value  of  the  diamond  is  his  and  not  yours.  It  is  an 
"unearned  increment,"  not  to  diamond,  but  to  land.  If 
you  found  it  upon  public  land,  it  would  be  yours ;  and 
as  to  that  particular  stone,  you  might  seem  in  that  case  to 
have  acquired  an  "unearned  increment."  But  this  would 
be  in  seeming  only.  At  most  it  would  be  an  economic 
undulation.  That  the  value  of  a  diamond  so  found  is 
essentially  an  "unearned  increment"  to  land  may  be  seen 
if  we  suppose,  what  would  naturally  be  the  case,  that  it 
is  not  a  stray  stone  you  have  found,  but  a  diamond 
deposit.  Should  you  have  found  this  on  private  land, 
the  land  would  rise  in  value  as  knowledge  of  the  discovery 
spread,  until  all  the  "unearned  increment"  to  those  dia- 
monds had  attached  to  the  land  where  they  lay.  The 
same  thing,  with  a  difference  only  as  to  beneficiaries, 
would  occur  if  your  "find"  were  upon  public  land.    You, 


POLITICAL  ECONOMY  157 

or  some  one  else,  would  hasten  to  acquire  private  title  to 
the  site  of  the  diamond  deposit,  and  through  the  land 
monopoly  thus  created  would  as  landlord  appropriate 
all  the  "unearned  increment,"  thereby  making  it  an 
"unearned  increment"  to  land.  The  history  of  Kimberley 
tells  that  story  eloquently. 

Analyze  the  "unearned  increments"  to  other  things 
than  land,  and  almost  all  of  them  prove  at  last  to  be 
"unearned  increments"  to  land.  All  instances  to  the 
contrary  (such  as  the  finding  of  a  stray  diamond  without 
an  owner,  or  the  increase  in  value  of  reHcs  and  rarities), 
which  the  most  laborious  student  can  discover  or  the  most 
imaginative  controversialist  invent,  will  prove  upon  in- 
vestigation to  be  to  the  mean  level  of  economic  phenom- 
ena what  rolling  waves  are  to  the  mean  level  of  the  ocean 
— mere  transitory  undulations. 

Very  much  of  the  deferential  quarreling  among  econ- 
omists might  cease  were  the  fact  more  clearly  recog- 
nized that  economic  phenomena  have  a  mean  level  toward 
which  all  undulations  tend ;  if  it  were  better  understood, 
that  is,  that  political  economy  is  a  science  of  tendencies. 
In  a  way,  this  is  recognized.  But  the  recognition  is  quite 
perfunctory.  It  is,  indeed,  only  verbal,  as  a  glance 
through  almost  any  book  on  the  subject  will  show.  Mod- 
ern text-books  in  political  economy  are  given  over  largely 
to  erecting  sectional  views  of  economic  undulations.  And 
this  is  not  so  much  for  the  purpose  of  coming  at  the  mean 
level  in  that  needlessly  difficult  way,  as  to  show  that  there 
is  no  mean  level  at  all,  but  only  a  vast  confusion  of  toss- 
ing waves  and  tumbling  billows. 


CHAPTER  II 

FREE  COMPETITION 

THAT  free  competition  has  had  its  day  and  is  destroy- 
ing itself,  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  established  facts, 
not  only  by  superficial  observers  of  economic  phenomena, 
but  also  by  the  "scientific"  cult  in  economics.  Why  a  notion 
so  manifestly  erroneous  should  be  regarded  as  scientific, 
is  itself  a  problem.  It  may  possibly  be  explained  by  the 
abuse  in  economics  of  what  is  known  as  the  "scientific" 
method.  Economic  "scientists"  are  so  deeply  absorbed  in 
the  contemplation  of  multitudinous  and  multifarious  minor 
data  that  they  often  give  but  scant  attention  to  familiar 
and  simple  major  data.  They  cannot  see  the  forest  for 
the  trees,  nor  the  city  for  the  houses.  They  overlook  the 
mean  level  of  economic  tendencies  in  their  statistical 
studies  of  economic  undulations.  In  their  perspiring 
effort  to  accomplish  a  monstrous  and  impossible  task  in 
synthesis,  they  neglect  logical  analysis  altogether.  Over- 
training seems  to  have  undone  them.  It  is  known  to 
have  that  effect  upon  the  body ;  why  not  upon  the  mind  ? 

But  whatever  the  explanation  of  this  "scientific"  ab- 
surdity may  be,  the  proposition  that  competition  has  had 
its  day  and  is  destroying  itself  is  false  in  both  its  branches. 
It  is  false  in  its  assumption  that  there  has  been,  in  fact, 
an  era  of  free  competition  within  historic  times;  and  it 
is  false  in  its  theory  that  competition  destroys  competition. 

What  everybody  means  by  free  competition  is  free 
bargaining.     This  is  not  to  say  that  the  term  is  never 

158 


FREE  COMPETITION  159 

used  to  include  more  than  that  idea.  Unhappily  it 
is  so  used  altogether  too  often.  But  as  it  always  does 
include  that  idea,  it  cannot  comprehend  another  and  dis- 
cordant idea  without  carrying  a  double  meaning.  Anyone 
has  a  right,  of  course,  to  use  words  with  double  meanings ; 
but  persons  who  do  so  are  necessarily  ruled  off  the  forum 
of  sane  and  serious  discussion.  No  degree  of  liberty  in 
the  choice  of  words,  nor  any  extent  or  antiquity  of  verbal 
usage,  will  justify  in  scientific  discussion  or  investigation 
the  ascription  of  discordant  meanings  to  a  distinctive 
term.  Inasmuch,  then,  as  free  competition  always  does 
comprehend  the  idea  of  free  bargaining,  and  cannot, 
therefore,  be  legitimately  used  for  economic  inquiry  as 
including  any  idea  inconsistent  with  that  one,  we  are  fully 
warranted  in  saying  that  free  bargaining  is  synonymous 
with  free  competition. 

Divested  thus  of  the  conflicting  and  confusing  meanings 
of  loose  usage,  competition  is  instantly  recognized  as 
the  name  of  a  principle  of  social  or  industrial  life  which 
has  never  been  given  full  play.  Though  it  has  approx- 
imated freedom  at  times  on  the  frontiers  of  civilization, 
and  within  the  narrow  boundaries  of  those  primitive  com- 
munities has  worked  well  both  in  economics  and  morals, 
there  is  no  record  that  the  civilized  world,  considered  as 
one  community,  or  even  any  nation  so  considered,  has 
ever  had  an  opportunity  to  test  it. 

For  monopoly  in  some  form  has  always  character- 
ized historic  civilizations;  and  when  and  where  there 
is  monopoly,  and  to  the  degree  that  there  is  monop- 
oly, then  and  there  and  to  that  degree  competition,  or  free 
bargaining,  is  impossible.  Where  slavery  is,  competition 
is  restricted ;  the  slave  cannot  make  free  bargains.  Where 
private  corporations  control  the  highways  of  commerce, 


i6o        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

competition  is  restricted;  producers  and  consumers  can- 
not make  their  reciprocal  trades  without  paying  tribute, 
and  tribute  is  inconsistent  with  free  bargaining.  Where 
protective  tariffs  prevail,  free  bargaining  is  prevented, 
not  only  obviously  but  also  with  deliberate  intent.  Where 
revenue  tariffs  and  taxes  are  imposed  upon  producers  and 
consumers,  as  such,  free  bargaining  is  obstructed.  Where 
mines,  and  oil  wells,  and  salt  deposits,  and  forests,  and 
rights  of  highway,  and  terminal  points,  and  farming 
places  conveniently  located,  and  city  building-lots,  and 
water  power,  and  all  the  innumerable  provisions  which 
Nature  has  made  for  human  use — where  these  are  monop- 
olized, free  bargaining  is  nothing  but  a  free  farce.  There 
cannot  be  free  bargaining  when  either  of  the  bargainers 
in  a  trade  has  a  legal  or  institutional  advantage,  or  stag- 
gers under  a  legal  or  institutional  disadvantage. 

It  is  true  that  in  modern  times  monopolies  themselves 
are  subjects  of  free  competition  between  monopolists. 
We  have  "free  trade,"  so-called,  even  in  that  great- 
est and  most  fundamental  monopoly,  the  monopoly 
of  the  earth.  But  this  does  not  alter  the  question.  If 
monopolies  obstruct  competition,  they  will  obstruct  it 
none  the  less  for  being  made  subjects  of  competitive 
purchase  and  sale.  Though  this  may  operate  to  shift  the 
monopolists,  the  monopolies  still  hold  sway;  they  still 
abridge  free  bargaining,  still  interfere  with  free  com- 
petition, on  the  part  of  all  whose  transactions  come  with- 
in the  influence  of  their  tribute-exacting  power.  What 
of  it,  if  all  are  free  to  bargain  for  an  interest  in  a  railroad 
right  of  way  or  terminal  privilege  ?  What  of  it,  if  anyone 
may  have  a  place  upon  the  earth  if  he  can  get  it  by  bar- 
gaining? To  argue  that  this  is  free  competition,  that  this 
is  free  bargaining,  is  like  saying  that  there  is  no  slavery 


FREE  COMPETITION  i6i 

where  slaves  have  the  right  to  buy  their  freedom  at  the 
market  price.  Freedom  to  trade  one's  own  labor  for  a  right 
which  in  common  justice  belongs  to  him  without  labor — 
as  the  right  to  breathe,  the  right  to  be  free,  the  right  to 
work,  the  right  to  go  to  market,  the  right  to  a  place  upon 
the  earth,  the  right  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  common 
development — is  not  free  bargaining. 

And  when  in  the  history  of  our  civilization  have 
the  obstructions  to  competition  noted  above — when  have 
some  or  all  of  those  monopolies,  with  their  complex 
variations,  not  been  in  vogue  ?  One  of  them,  the  monop- 
oly of  the  earth,  has  attended  the  development  and 
strengthened  with  the  advances  of  civilization  from  the 
earliest  times.  Yet  economic  "scientists"  teach  that  free 
competition  has  had  its  day ! 

Not  only  have  we  never  had  an  era  of  free  competi- 
tion, but  such  limited  competition  as  we  have  had  or  have 
now  is  not  being  destroyed  by  itself.  That  it  is  being 
destroyed  is  quite  evident ;  but  competition  is  not  destroy- 
ing it.  What  is  destroying  it  is  the  natural  antagonist  of 
competition — monopoly. 

As  already  indicated,  our  civilization  is  impregnated 
with  institutional  monopoly.  Though  its  outward  form 
is  competition,  and  though  more  or  less  freedom  of  com- 
petition has  vitalized  it,  the  seeds  of  the  monopoly  disease 
have  always  been  in  its  system.  Under  the  influence  of 
miraculous  progress  in  the  production  of  wealth,  this 
disease  has  rapidly  gained  headway,  and  as  it  has  ad- 
vanced the  influence  of  competition  has  naturally  receded. 
Only  by  ignoring  the  fact  of  institutional  monopoly  is  it 
possible  to  infer  with  even  an  approximation  to  scientific 
precision  that  competition  is  destroying  itself.  To  con- 
sider the  fact  of  monopoly,  but  to  regard  it  as  the  natural 


i62         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

(or  must  we  say  "scientific")  outcome  of  competition,  is 
a  little  like  regarding  weeds  in  the  corn  row  as  the 
"scientific"  product  of  seed  corn  in  the  hill.  Whenever 
of  two  conflicting  forces — and  that  is  what  competition 
and  monopoly  are — one  comes  under  the  sway  of  the 
other,  it  is  not  usually  considered  scientific  to  conclude 
that  it  has  destroyed  itself  and  produced  the  other.  The 
usual,  not  to  say  necessary,  conclusion  is  that  the  one 
force  has  for  some  reason  been  overcome  by  the  other. 
Yet  economic  "science"  encourages  the  notion  not  that 
monopoly  is  overcoming  competition,  but  that  competi- 
tion is  overcoming  itself  and  creating  monopoly ! 

Briefly  stated  with  reference  to  current  problems,  the 
misleading  theory  of  such  "scientists"  is  that  free  com- 
petition has  had  a  trial  in  which  it  has  destroyed  itself  and 
produced  monopoly  in  the  form  of  trusts.  And  this  ab- 
surd misconception  has  taken  root  in  popular  thought. 
The  industrial  pressure  which  is  forcing  masses  of  the 
people  deeper  into  a  condition  of  helpless  dependence, 
where  squalid  poverty  and  carking  fear  of  poverty  in 
the  midst  of  luxury  make  life  bitter  and  unwholesome, 
has  tremendously  stimulated  economic  discussion  among 
the  masses  of  the  people.  The  most  pronounced  char- 
acteristic of  this  discussion,  however,  is  its  confusion.  In 
that  respect  it  may  be  fairly  compared  with  the  confusion 
of  tongues  at  Babel.  Such  variety  of  opinion  prevails 
among  different  schools  of  social  reformers  that  effective 
concert  of  action  is  hopeless.  The  luxurious  and  domi- 
neering beneficiaries  of  the  existing  industrial  regime 
might  safely  say  to  these  reformers:  "When  you  agree 
among  yourselves  upon  what  to  do,  we  promise  sub- 
mission to  your  decision."  There  would  be  no  decision 
to  submit  to,  because  there  is  no  community  of  opinion. 


FREE  COMPETITION  163 

Yet  the  reason  for  the  confusion  may  be  traced  to 
disputes  about  the  single  economic  principle — or,  may 
be,  it  is  only  a  misunderstanding  of  the  significance  of  the 
single  economic  term — competition.  Whenever  there  are 
grounds  for  supposing  that  a  dispute,  instead  of  turning 
upon  the  substance  of  an  idea,  turns  upon  the  significance 
of  a  word,  it  is  best,  if  possible,  at  the  outset  at  any  rate, 
to  avoid  using  the  ambiguous  word.  That  many  disputes 
do  turn  upon  mere  words  is  matter  of  common  observa- 
tion. It  is  inevitable  that  they  should  do  so.  For  words 
connote  or  suggest,  quite  as  distinctly  as  they  denote  or 
specify.  Indeed,  the  ideas  that  words  connote  are  often 
more  vivid  than  those  they  denote.  Though  you  define 
your  term  never  so  nicely,  yet  if  it  be  a  common  word 
with  different  connotations  in  different  localities  or  to 
different  minds,  mental  confusion  and  consequent  disputes 
cannot  easily  be  avoided  by  precise  definition.  This  is 
especially  true  with  minds  untrained  in  precise  thinking. 
It  is  true  also  with  those  that  are  trained  to  loose  thinking. 

Illustrations  are  abundant.  For  example:  The  term 
"provincial"  has  the  same  primary  meaning  wherever 
English  is  spoken.  Yet  the  ideas  which  it  connotes  to  the 
British  Columbian  are  in  one  respect  opposite  to  those 
which  it  connotes  to  the  Londoner  or  the  Bostonian.  As 
the  inhabitant  of  the  Province  of  British  Columbia  has 
learned  to  contrast  his  municipalities  with  his  Province, 
somewhat  as  we  contrast  our  States  with  our  nation, 
"provincial"  is  to  him  a  term  of  large  significance,  like 
our  term  "national."  When  he  wishes  to  dignify  an 
industrial  enterprise  or  a  political  measure,  he  describes 
its  character  as  "provincial,"  thereby  intending  to  suggest 
that  it  is  vastly  more  important  than  if  it  were  an  enter- 
prise or  measure  of  merely  local  concern.     But  to  the 


i64        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Londoner  or  Bostonian,  "provincial"  suggests  a  contrast 
of  what  is  local  with  what  is  metropolitan.  To  the  latter, 
therefore,  the  term  connotes  ideas  of  pettiness  or  inferi- 
ority, while  to  the  British  Columbian  it  connotes  ideas  of 
greatness  or  superiority.  How  easy  it  might  be,  then,  for 
a  Londoner  or  a  Bostonian  to  fall  into  interminable  dis- 
pute with  a  British  Columbian  over  some  question  of 
"provincialism"  regarding  which  they  were  really  in 
agreement.  It  would  be  almost  unavoidable  even  if  they 
began  with  a  precise  definition  of  the  term  "provincial." 
For  notwithstanding  their  agreement  as  to  the  denotation 
of  the  term,  its  conflicting  connotations  to  which  they 
were  respectively  habituated  would  constantly  obtrude 
to  promote  misunderstanding  between  them. 

Another  illustration  of  the  difficulty  of  avoiding  con- 
fusion of  thought  by  separating  the  ideas  that  a  word 
connotes  from  those  which  it  specifically  denotes  is  af- 
forded by  the  subject  here  under  consideration.  Most 
if  not  all  the  disputes  among  social  reformers  over  the 
justice  or  injustice,  the  wisdom  or  folly,  the  righteous- 
ness or  wickedness,  the  benefits  or  injury  that  are  due  to 
competition,  rest  upon  conflicting  impressions  as  to  the 
significance  of  the  term.  In  economic  thought,  when 
precise,  "competition"  is  a  term  which  denotes  individ- 
ual freedom  in  industrial  affairs — free  bargaining,  as 
we  have  already  defined  it.  It  excludes  all  idea  of  arbi- 
trary industrial  control  of  any  person  by  others.  But 
through  colloquial  and  other  loose  usage,  the  term  has 
come  to  connote  ideas  the  very  reverse  of  this.  For  that 
reason  a  discussion  of  the  law  of  competition  which 
begins  with  a  definition  of  the  word,  is  in  danger,  notwith- 
standing precision  in  defining,  of  being  misunderstood 
by  persons  to  whom  the  word  habitually  connotes  ideas 


FREE  COMPETITION  165 

at  variance  with  the  definition.  Since,  therefore,  the 
use  of  the  term  "competition"  may  turn  attention  away 
from  the  essential  idea  under  consideration,  and  produce 
needless  conflict  of  opinion,  we  should  seek  other  forms 
of  expression  until  we  can  bring  clearly  within  the  ap- 
prehension the  substance  of  the  idea  involved.  The  idea 
is  the  thing,  not  the  word.  In  what  follows  let  us  aim 
to  conform  to  this  principle. 

Economic  adjustment  always  must  offer  for  adoption 
two,  and  only  two,  possible  forms — the  monopolistic,  and 
the  cooperative.  Monopoly  implies  compulsion,  and  is  the 
opposite  of  cooperation.  It  does,  indeed,  resemble  co- 
operation, for  it  is  a  form  of  united  industrial  effort  But 
slave  systems  resemble  cooperation  in  that  sense.  All 
production  is  through  union  of  industrial  effort ;  but  com- 
pulsory union  is  a  radically  different  thing  from  voluntary 
union.  What  distinguishes  monopoly  from  cooperation, 
and  puts  them  at  opposite  poles,  is  the  compulsory  char- 
acter of  the  one  and  the  voluntary  character  of  the  other. 

Monopoly  is  a  form  of  economic  adjustment  which  is 
to  be  avoided  whenever  and  wherever  possible.  For  com- 
pulsion is  abhorrent  to  democratic  principles.  To  em- 
power any  man  to  compel  others  to  serve  or  to  put  them 
at  a  disadvantage  in  contracting  to  serve,  is  to  establish 
the  principle  of  slavery.  Monopoly  is,  indeed,  a  species 
of  human  slavery.  Nor  would  it  be  any  the  less  slavery 
if  government  instead  of  individuals  or  corporations  were 
the  master. 

With  the  development  of  industry,  some  kinds  of  ser- 
vice become  naturally  monopolistic.  The  water  supply 
of  a  city  is  an  illustration.  Cities  cannot  be  supplied 
with  water  except  through  monopolistic  methods.  In  all 
such  instances  there  is  no  choice  between  monopoly  and 


i66         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

no  monopoly;  the  choice  is  only  between  monopolists. 
And  when  that  is  the  case  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
question  that  as  between  the  public  or  community  as  a 
whole,  and  private  individuals  or  corporations,  the  public 
is  the  preferable  monopolist.  But  so  long  as  an  occupa- 
tion is  not  necessarily  and  essentially  monopolistic,  the 
minds  of  free  men  will  justly  revolt  at  the  thought  of 
turning  it  into  a  monopoly  under  either  private  or  public 
control. 

To  cooperation,  then,  as  distinguished  from  monopoly, 
the  democratic  mind  must  turn  for  industrial  develop- 
ment and  industrial  justice,  barring  only  those  exceptional 
occupations  which  are  necessarily  or  in  the  nature  of 
things  monopolies. 

But  cooperation  must  mean  something  different  from 
what  is  usually  understood  by  socialism.  That  is  en- 
forced cooperation,  and  therefore  monopoly  under  an- 
other name.  It  is  infected  with  compulsion,  which  is  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  monopoly.  True  enough, 
socialists  insist  that  there  would  be  no  compulsion  in  the 
Socialist  Commonwealth.  But  that  is  their  inference. 
Others  as  competent  to  judge  as  they,  infer  that  there 
would  be  compulsion. 

Cooperation  must  also  comprehend  more  than  is  im- 
plied by  the  organizers  of  profit-sharing  societies  and 
schemes,  who  have  of  late  years  appropriated  the  word. 
It  must  be  taken  to  signify  that  world-wide  combination 
of  effort  in  supplying  human  wants  which  is  effected  by 
the  voluntary  interchanges  of  labor. 

But  in  the  interest  of  justice,  how  are  these  world-wide 
interchanges  of  labor  to  be  regulated  ?  Who  shall  work  ? 
How  much  shall  the  workers  do?  What  shall  they  do? 
For  whom  shall  they  do  it?  How  much  shall  they  re- 
ceive?   And  who  shall  decide? 


FREE   COMPETITION  167 

Under  a  monopolistic  regime  those  questions  would  be 
decided  more  or  less  arbitrarily  for  every  one  by  superior 
authority — by  trusts,  if  the  regime  were  one  of  private 
and  corporate  monopoly ;  by  governments,  if  the  monopoly 
were  public  or  socialistic.  But  in  both  there  would  be 
arbitrary  compulsion,  which  is  to  be  avoided  if  possible. 

Cooperation  avoids  it — cooperation,  that  is,  in  the 
fullest  and  broadest  sense  of  the  term,  and  as  distin- 
guished from  monopoly — by  making  every  man  free  to 
decide  the  questions  for  himself.  Under  a  regime  of 
cooperation  each  would  work  if  he  wished;  each  would 
work  as  much  or  as  little  as  he  wished  and  receive  in 
proportion ;  each  would  work  at  what  he  preferred ;  and 
each  would  work  for  whom  he  chose,  subject  only  to  that 
person's  corresponding  right  of  choice.  By  what  method 
cooperation  would  effect  this  result  is  the  next  point  of 
inquiry. 

No  patent  device  for  social  reform  is  here  set  up.  We 
are  simply  investigating,  and  trying  to  adjust  social  condi- 
tions to  the  operation  of  natural  law.  The  natural  law  of 
social  adjustments  must  be  sought  for  in  the  laws  of  hu- 
man nature.  Seeking  there,  Henry  George  asserted  the 
following  as  fundamental :  "Men  seek  to  satisfy  their 
desires  with  the  least  exertion."  This  is  a  law  which,  as 
he  explained,  "is  no  more  affected  by  the  selfishness  or 
unselfishness  of  our  desires  than  is  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion." Let  a  man's  desires  be  what  they  may,  selfish  or 
unselfish,  in  endeavoring  to  satisfy  them  he  will  seek 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  It  is  this  law,  this  universally 
recognized  fact,  and  not  an  assumed  principle  of  human 
selfishness,  that  regulates  industry  in  free  cooperation. 

Monopoly,  whether  private  or  governmental,  obstructs 
the  line  of  least  resistance  and  thereby  forces  men  to 


i68         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

seek  the  satisfaction  of  their  desires,  selfish  and  unselfish, 
with  greater  instead  of  least  exertion.  But  all  this 
would  be  changed  by  abolishing  monopoly  in  every 
vocation  in  which  it  is  not  a  necessary  condition,  and 
private  monopoly  altogether.  Unnecessary  obstructions 
along  the  line  of  least  economic  resistance  would  be  there- 
by removed,  and  each  man  would  acquire  full  economic 
freedom  to  satisfy  his  own  desires  in  the  way  that  seemed 
easiest  to  him.  The  only  restraint  upon  this  natural  im- 
pulse of  his  would  be  the  equal  economic  freedom  of 
everyone  else.  And  that  would  be  restraint  enough.  He 
would  then  cooperate  with  his  fellows,  from  time  to 
time  or  all  the  time  as  he  pleased,  upon  terms  mutually 
desirable,  and  only  upon  such  terms.  Neither  trusts  nor 
governments  would  be  his  master.  Selfishly  or  unselfish- 
ly, it  matters  not  which,  except  to  his  own  character,  he 
would  be  master  of  himself. 

But  a  cooperative  regime  in  which  everyone  is  master 
of  himself  must  be  a  regime  of  free  bargaining,  of  free 
competition.  Not  only  does  free  competition  alone  make 
such  cooperation  possible,  but  so  long  as  it  exists  com- 
petition will  persist.  Self-mastership  and  free  competi- 
tion are  inseparable.  To  weaken  or  abolish  either  is  to 
weaken  or  abolish  the  other.  Monopoly  implies  mastery 
by  some  of  others,  be  the  monopoly  private  or  govern- 
mental. Free  competition  implies  individual  freedom.  It 
is  only  under  free  competition  that  all  men  can  be  at  liberty 
to  satisfy  their  desires,  selfish  or  unselfish,  with  what  ap- 
pears to  them  under  all  the  circumstances  to  be  the  least 
exertion. 

In  the  absence  of  legal  restraint,  competition  exists 
as  an  expression  of  the  Georgian  law  quoted  above — 
the  law  that  men  seek  to  satisfy  their  desires,  selfish  or  un- 


FREE    COMPETITION  169 

selfish,  with  the  least  exertion.  But  there  are,  as  this 
law  implies,  two  kinds  of  competition.  They  may  be 
distinguished  as  "altruistic"  and  "egoistic." 

If  men  were  all  unselfish,  each  seeking  primarily  the 
comfort  of  his  neighbor,  we  might  have  "altruistic"  com- 
petition, in  which  every  one  would  compete  for  opportuni- 
ties to  give  the  most  service  for  the  least  service  in  return. 
And  if  they  were  all  free,  the  conflict  between  them  would 
produce  an  equilibrium,  not  at  the  least  return  nor  at  the 
greatest  expenditure  of  service,  but  at  the  point  of  fair  ex- 
change. For,  traders  to  whom  much  service  was  offered 
in  return  for  little,  being  as  altruistic  as  the  others,  would 
generously  refuse  to  take  so  much  for  so  little,  and  a  "hig- 
gling" would  ensue  until  the  just  equilibrium  had  been 
established.  So  long  as  all  were  sincerely  altruistic  this 
would  be  the  result  of  their  dealings.  It  would  make 
no  difference  for  how  much  less  than  it  was  worth  any 
man  insisted  upon  rendering  service.  Since  all  would 
with  equal  strenuousness  oppose  receiving  service  ex- 
cept for  its  full  value  or  more,  the  competition — "al- 
trusistic"  competition — would  produce  an  equilibrium  at 
the  point  of  equality  of  benefit. 

But  "altruistic"  competition  could  thrive  only  in  com- 
munities where  all  were  altruists.  If  there  were  an  ele- 
ment of  selfishness  in  the  community,  it  would  hopelessly 
disturb  the  equilibrium.  Imagine  the  effect  in  physical 
affairs  of  atmospheric  pressure  at  15  pounds  to  the  inch 
in  some  directions,  and  less  than  15  in  others,  and  you 
get  some  conception  of  what  the  economic  effect  of 
"altruistic"  competition  would  be  in  a  community  where 
all  were  not  altruists.  There  would  be  no  equilibrium 
of  exchange.  When  altruists  offered  to  render  service 
for  less  than  it  was  worth,  non-altruists  would  do  no 


I70         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

higgling,  but  would  clinch  the  bargain  at  once.  The  final 
result  in  that  community,  if  altruistic  competition  contin- 
ued, would  be  a  division  into  classes  of  altruistic  poor  and 
selfish  rich.  The  altruistic  class  would  render  most  of  the 
service,  and  the  other  class  would  get  most  of  the  benefit. 
The  nearest  approach  to  altruistic  competition  of  which 
we  have  any  record  prevails  at  the  present  time — not  in 
spirit  but  in  practice.  Though  the  great  working  masses 
may  be  no  more  altruistic  in  spirit  than  the  classes  their 
labor  enriches,  they  nevertheless  exchange  their  labor 
upon  altruistic  terms,  rendering  more  service  than  they 
receive  in  return. 

"Egoistic"  competition,  on  the  other  hand,  when  oper- 
ating in  like  free  conditions,  maintains  the  just  equi- 
librium of  exchange  everywhere — in  communities  that  are 
all  unselfish,  in  those  that  are  all  selfish,  and  in  those  that 
are  mixed.  Under  a  regime  of  "egoistic"  competition  no 
one  would  offer  his  service  for  less  than  he  believed  it 
to  be  worth,  and  many  would  ask  more.  This  would 
generate  a  conflict,  not  of  each  to  give  much  for  little,  as 
in  "altruistic"  competition,  but  of  each  to  give  little  for 
much.  But  if  all  were  free  the  result  of  this  competition 
would  be  exactly  like  that  of  "altruistic"  competition. 
The  competitive  pressure  being  equal  on  all  sides,  it  also 
would  produce  an  equilibrium  at  the  point  of  fair  ex- 
change. 

In  the  result,  however,  this  difference  would  appear: 
Whereas  selfish  traders  could  disturb  the  equilibrium  of 
"altruistic"  competition,  they  could  not  disturb  that  of 
"egoistic"  competition.  The  persistent  equal  pressure  of 
self-interest  in  all  directions  would  force  them  to  make 
fair  bargains.  The  better  it  is  understood,  the  clearer  it 
will  be  seen  that  "egoistic"  competition  is  a  natural  law 


FREE    COMPETITION  lyi 

for  compelling  the  selfish  to  be  fair  and  the  unrighteous 
to  be  just. 

And  it  rests  upon  an  immutable  principle,  namely,  that 
every  man  must  live  his  life  from  within  outward.  No 
one  can  live  from  others  to  himself.  He  must  live  from 
himself  to  others.  Selfhood  is  the  base  line  of  all  social 
triangulation.  The  principle  finds  its  highest  expression 
in  the  golden  rule:  "Whatsoever  ye  would  that  others 
should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  This  is  a 
law  of  justice,  not  of  altruism.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
give  it  altruistic  expression.  The  law  of  justice  demands, 
what,  in  economics,  laws  of  human  nature  enforce,  that 
each  shall  look  out  upon  all  his  brethren  as  from  the  center 
of  a  circle.  He  knows  his  own  sensations  ;  he  cannot  know 
theirs.  To  be  just,  therefore,  he  must  do  to  them  as  he 
would  have  them  do  to  him.  It  is  the  only  way.  And 
when  men  engage  in  interchanging  their  labor  or  its 
products  for  mutual  satisfaction,  each  must  fall  back  upon 
his  own  sensations  in  laboring  as  the  test  of  the  reward 
he  will  demand  from  others.  There  is  no  other  test.  Then 
by  the  pressure  of  his  offers  and  demands  in  an  open 
and  free  market  where  all  are  equal,  upon  the  offers  and 
demands  of  his  fellows,  a  just  ratio  of  labor  exchange  is 
established.  That  pressure  is  competition,  "egoistic" 
competition,  which  is  the  economic  expression  of  the 
spiritual  law  phrased  in  the  golden  rule. 

Even  if  this  were  less  desirable  than  "altruistic"  com- 
petition, the  latter  could  be  advocated  only  as  an  admoni- 
tion to  the  individual  and  not  as  a  social  reform.  For 
altruism  enforced  by  law,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible, 
would  be  only  less  odious  and  no  whit  less  menacing  than 
monopoly  enforced  by  law.  Though  it  is  every  man's 
right,  and  may  be  every  man's  religious  duty,  to  love  his 


172         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

neighbor  better  than  himself,  it  is  no  man's  right,  either 
as  voter,  legislator  or  czar,  to  compel  another  to  do  so. 

The  function  of  the  law  is  to  secure  to  all  equal  rights 
to  satisfy  their  desires  with  the  least  exertion.  Whatever 
is  necessary  for  this  purpose  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of 
government  to  undertake.  Beyond  that,  government 
cannot  go  without  menacing  liberty.  So  long  as  in- 
dividuals satisfy  their  desires  justly,  without  trespassing 
upon  the  rights  of  others,  it  is  for  them — not  for  gov- 
ernment— to  decide  whether  their  desires  shall  be  sel- 
fish or  unselfish.  Though  altruism  as  a  principle  of 
individual  conduct  may  rank  highest  in  the  list  of  human 
virtues,  as  a  social  reform  to  be  enforced  by  law  it  is 
impossible  of  accomplishment,  impertinent  in  design, 
invasive  in  conception  and  reactionary  in  tendency. 

Let  us  secure  to  all  men — not  to  some,  but  to  all — 
freedom  to  satisfy  their  desires,  selfish  or  unselfish,  with 
the  least  exertion  (which  can  be  done  only  by  freeing 
competition  from  monopoly),  and  we  may  safely  let  each 
man  be  as  generous  or  as  niggardly  as  he  pleases. 

When  the  real  nature  of  competition  is  considered,  it 
is  difficult  to  understand  why  any  thoughtful  man  should 
ever  have  doubted  its  usefulness.  But  thoughtful  men 
have  done  so,  and  the  reason  is  not  very  far  to  seek.  In 
the  first  place,  teachers  of  political  economy  have  per- 
sistently taught  that  competition  and  selfishness — selfish- 
ness in  the  sense  of  greed — are  synonymous,  and  that 
competition  is  an  animal-like  struggle  for  existence.  Noth- 
ing could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  As  we  have  already 
seen,  selfishness  may  or  may  not  be  the  motive  in  com- 
petition. Whether  it  be  or  not,  in  any  given  case,  is  im- 
material to  this  inquiry.    The  part  that  competition  plays 


FREE    COMPETITION  173 

in  society  is  not  as  a  minister  to  greed,  but  as  a  minister 
of  justice  in  exchange. 

As  Henry  George  truly  said  in  his  posthumous  book: 
"There  is  no  measure  of  value  among  men  save  competi- 
tion or  the  higgling  of  the  market."  It  is  only  by  this 
means  that  workers  can  measure  the  value  of  their  work 
so  as  to  exchange  it  among  themselves  fairly  and  justly. 
Each  understands  and  can  appraise  the  irksomeness  of  the 
labor  he  himself  does,  better  than  he  can  understand  or 
appraise  that  of  the  person  with  whom  he  contemplates  an 
exchange.  It  is  natural,  therefore,  that  he  should  endeavor 
to  adjust  his  trades  from  the  view-point  of  the  irksomeness 
of  his  own  labor,  rather  than  from  that  of  the  irksomeness 
of  another's  labor.  Yet  each  is  checked  from  appraising 
his  own  labor  exorbitantly,  by  others  who  would  compete 
if  he  demanded  a  larger  return  than  that  for  which  they 
were  willing  to  endure  the  same  degree  of  irksomeness. 
And  if  all  are  free,  with  equal  access  to  natural  and  social 
opportunities,  this  competition  could  produce  but  one 
effect — an  equilibrium  of  exchange  at  a  point  at  which 
neither  party  to  the  trade  gets  more  or  gives  less  than 
is  just.  While  it  is  true  that  parties  to  trades  may  be 
actuated  by  selfish  motives  in  their  competition,  it  is 
equally  true  that  they  may  be  actuated  by  unselfish 
motives.  And  be  their  motives  good  or  bad,  the  net  result 
of  their  competition,  if  they  compete  in  freedom,  is  a  just 
equilibrium  of  value.  It  is  justice,  not  greed,  to  which 
free  competition  really  ministers. 

But  under  existing  arrangements  competition  is  not 
free.  This  is  a  second  reason  why  some  thoughtful  men 
have  been  misled  into  supposing  that  competition  is 
neither  useful  nor  right.  Monopoly  having  intervened, 
all  competition  is  affected  by  it;  so  that  what  we  are 


174        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

accustomed  to  regard  as  competition  is  not  free  competi- 
tion at  all,  but  at  the  best  is  only  jug-handling  competi- 
tion. 

When  an  importer  who  has  been  forced  to  pay  customs 
duties  in  order  to  maintain  protected  monopolies,  offers 
his  goods  for  sale  in  competition  with  one  who  has  smug- 
gled his  goods  into  the  country,  the  competition  is  one- 
sided. When  a  farmer,  who  has  paid  to  a  railroad  mo- 
nopoly in  freight  rates  all  the  traffic  will  bear,  offers  his 
produce  in  competition  with  a  favored  shipper  who  is 
allowed  rebates,  the  competition  is  one-sided.  When 
landless  workingmen,  who  must  get  work  or  starve,  offer 
their  services  in  competition  with  one  another  in  a  labor 
market  which  has  been  glutted  by  monopolization  of  work- 
ing opportunities — when  they  offer  their  services  in  these 
circumstances  to  men  who  control  more  or  less  of  the 
monopolized  opportunities,  the  competition  is  one-sided. 
If,  instead  of  the  condition  which  these  illustrations  sug- 
gest, we  had  a  condition  in  which  there  were  no  tariff 
duties  to  be  paid  by  some  and  evaded  by  others ;  in  which 
highway  rights  were  equal,  and  no  private  monopolist 
could  deal  out  highway  favors;  in  which  all  land  not 
in  use  were  everywhere  open  to  its  appropriate  use  with- 
out blackmail ;  in  which,  in  short,  every  exchange  were 
essentially  an  exchange  of  labor — if  that  were  the  indus- 
trial regime  under  which  we  live,  then  the  usefulness,  the 
beneficence,  the  indlspensability  of  competition  would  be 
as  obvious  as  the  usefulness,  the  beneficence,  and  the  in- 
dispensability  of  gravitation. 

And  it  is  altogether  a  begging  of  the  question  to  say 
that  the  present  jug-handled  regime  is  a  natural  and  inev- 
itable outgrowth  of  the  competitive  idea.  As  well  argue 
that  a  one-legged  man  owes  his  misfortune  to  the  fact 


FREE   COMPETITION  175 

that  men  have  legs.  If  men  didn't  have  legs,  we  should 
have  no  one-legged  men.  So,  if  it  were  not  for  compe- 
tition, we  should  have  no  jug-handled  competition.  But 
one-legged  men  owe  their  misfortune  to  interference  with 
legs,  not  to  the  leg  idea.  Likewise  we  owe  jug-handled 
competition  to  interference  with  competition,  and  not  to 
the  competitive  idea.  It  is  monopoly,  not  its  antithesis, 
that  distorts,  disarranges  and  demoralizes  our  industrial 
system. 

A  third  reason  has  contributed  to  the  error.  This  rea- 
son springs  out  of  the  mediation  of  money  in  trading 
transactions,  coupled  with  the  custom  of  trading  monop- 
olies indiscriminately  with  other  things.  As  money  is 
exchangeable  for  anything  in  the  market,  the  establish- 
ment of  monopolies  enables  monopolists  to  get  money 
without  laboring.  The  real  character  of  competition  in 
trading — exchange  of  labor  for  labor — is  thus  completely 
hidden  from  common  observation,  and  also  from  a 
good  deal  of  observation  that  is  not  common.  Trade 
comes  to  be  in  appearance  an  exchange  of  something 
for  money;  and  competition  to  be  a  struggle  between 
those  who  haven't  money,  to  get  money  from  those 
who  have  it.  The  whole  social  organism  is  turned  upside 
down  and  inside  out.  But  it  is  the  abolition  of  monoply, 
not  of  its  opposite,  competition,  that  would  correct  this. 
If  monopoly  were  abolished,  we  should  soon  distinctly 
see,  in  spite  of  the  obscurity  which  the  use  of  money 
introduces,  that  trade  consists  essentially  in  exchanges  of 
labor  for  labor,  and  that  competition  is  the  natural  and 
only  just  regulator  of  values  in  these  exchanges.  For  if 
monopoly  were  abolished,  none  could  get  products  of 
labor  except  by  laboring,  and  each  would  get  these  prod- 


176         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

ucts  in  proportion  to  the  usefulness  of  his  labor.  Money 
would  then  represent  labor,  and  nothing  but  labor. 

The  true  work  before  us,  then,  the  work  that  will 
count  both  in  the  doing  and  in  the  fruition,  is  to  abolish 
monopoly  and  restore  freedom  to  competition.  Where 
monopoly  is  inevitable,  as  in  water  supplies  for  cities  and 
the  Hke,  the  service  that  is  subject  to  it  must  be  assumed 
by  the  public,  to  the  end  that  in  other  vocations  compe- 
tition may  be  freed ;  private  monopoly  in  anything  tends 
to  destroy  competition  in  all  things.  Freedom  of  com- 
petition must  be  the  aim  in  every  movement.  The  other 
direction  leads  to  monopoly.  To  these  two  the  choice  is 
confined.  There  is  no  middle  ground.  Instead  of  trying 
to  guard  men  in  their  economic  relations  with  a  legal  net- 
work, let  us  set  men  free — free  to  labor  as  they  will,  free 
to  trade  where  they  will,  and  free  to  dispose  of  what  they 
earn  as  suits  them  best — so  that  each  can  guard  himself 
in  his  own  economic  relations. 

If  that  is  desirable — and  really  is  it  not  the  only  thing 
worth  fighting  for? — then  we  must  achieve  it  by  making 
competition  free.  Free  competition,  and  that  alone,  can 
secure  economic  freedom.  Without  it  we  have  monopoly. 
And  an  economic  state  organized  upon  monopoly  princi- 
ples would  be  intolerable,  whether  governed  by  a  trust 
magnate,  a  political  boss,  a  trades  tmion  leader,  a  majority 
of  the  people,  or  even  the  most  amiable  altruist  who  ever 
loved  his  fellow  men. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LABORER  AND  HIS  HIRE 

ALONG  with  the  notion  that  competition  is  selfish, 
goes  the  feeling  that  there  is  something  wrong 
about  taking  pay  for  rendering  service.  This  feeling  is 
quite  general  with  reference  to  altruistic  work.  It  is  very 
common,  for  instance,  to  suppose  that  there  is  something 
sordid  about  preaching  for  pay.  The  allusion,  though 
usually  to  preachers  of  conventional  religion,  is  directed 
at  all  apostles  of  vital  truth.  In  its  more  general  form 
this  condemnation  of  preachers  of  truth  who  exact  pay 
for  preaching,  rests  upon  the  theory  that  the  truth  should 
be  free,  and  that  he  who  charges  for  preaching  it  thereby 
discredits  both  himself  and  his  cause.  Is  it,  then,  the 
duty  of  preachers  of  truth  to  preach  without  pay  ? 

In  making  this  inquiry,  the  difference  between  preach- 
ing truth  and  making  truth  known,  must  be  distinguished. 
It  is  one  thing  to  conceal  truth  as  occasion  for  imparting 
it  occurs,  and  quite  a  different  thing  to  devote  persistent 
labor  to  its  exposition  and  propagation. 

A  blacksmith,  for  instance,  who  had  awakened  to  a 
consciousness  of  some  moral  or  economic  or  religious 
truth,  the  acceptance  of  which  would  augment  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind,  might  be  censurable  if  he  refused  to 
make  it  known.  In  fact  there  would  be  no  danger  of 
his  refusing.  The  impulses  of  his  nature  would  make 
him  proclaim  it.  His  neighbors  would  need  no  thumb- 
screws to  force  him  to  deliver  his  message,  though  they 

177 


178         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

might  at  times  wish  for  a  lockjaw  to  make  him  hold  his 
peace.  As  with  the  blacksmith,  so  with  men  of  all  voca- 
tions. We  may  at  once  concede  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
everyone  freely  to  make  known  the  truths  that  come  to 
him;  and,  for  the  sake  at  least  of  directness  of  inquiry, 
that  it  is  a  duty  which  if  neglected  entitles  others  to  com- 
plain of  the  breach.  In  a  word,  we  may  agree  that  the 
revelation  of  truth  without  money  or  price  is  a  universal 
duty ;  at  the  same  time  protesting,  however,  that  the  point 
is  unimportant,  since  human  nature  is  so  constituted  that 
this  duty  is  self-executing. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  he  who  sees  a  truth  must 
quit  his  regular  vocation,  or  even  trench  upon  its  demands, 
to  devote  himself  to  teaching  and  preaching  without  pay. 
He  is  under  no  obligation,  for  the  breach  of  which  others 
may  justly  complain,  even  to  surrender  his  leisure  hours 
to  this  work.  That  he  may  make  such  work  his  play,  re- 
fusing remuneration,  is  too  obviously  true  to  call  for  more 
than  passing  mention.  It  is  also  true  that  he  may  be 
under  a  spiritual  obligation  to  the  great  Revealer  of  all 
truth,  who  has  intrusted  him  with  a  message  to  the  world, 
to  drop  his  nets  and  become  an  unpaid  fisher  of  men.  But, 
clearly,  if  he  has  any  duty  to  work  without  pay  for  the 
propagation  of  his  truth,  it  is  not  a  duty  in  any  such 
sense  as  involves  a  corresponding  right  on  the  part  of 
his  fellow  men  to  complain  if  he  refuses  to  do  the  work 
or  if  he  exacts  pay  for  doing  it.  And  that  is  the  deter- 
mining point.  When  we  criticize  preachers  for  exacting 
pay  for  preaching,  we  imply  not  that  they  are  false  to 
their  direct  personal  obligations  to  God  (for  this  is  none 
of  our  business),  but  that  they  are  false  to  their  obliga- 
tions to  us. 

It  will  hardly  be  insisted  that  any  such  obligation  really 


THE  LABORER  AND  HIS  HIRE    179 

exists,  and  we  may  pass  on  to  other  considerations.  By 
dint  of  a  little  probing  we  shall  find  that  no  one  really 
expects  preachers  of  truth  to  devote  themselves  to  their 
cause  literally  without  pay.  It  would  be  absurd  to  expect 
this,  whether  as  a  matter  of  duty  or  otherwise.  Even 
preachers  of  truth  must  have  food  and  clothing  and  shel- 
ter. And  if  the  truths  they  proclaim  are  to  gain  listening 
audiences,  preachers  must  live  as  well  as  their  auditors  are 
accustomed  to  live.  The  question  is  not  whether  they 
shall  preach  for  pay.  It  will  be  acknowledged  that  they 
must  have  pay.  The  real  question  is  whether  they  shall 
exact  pay  for  their  work,  as  other  men  do  for  theirs,  or 
shall  subsist  precariously  upon  the  proceeds  of  miscellane- 
ous beggary — that  is,  upon  what  is  given  them  as  charity 
for  their  support,  as  distinguished  from  what  is  paid  to 
them  as  hire  for  their  work. 

The  right  of  preachers  to  adopt  the  beggary  plan,  no 
one  is  at  liberty  to  dispute.  One  may  express  doubts  of 
its  effectiveness  in  this  age,  may  refuse  to  drop  pennies 
into  the  outstretched  hat,  or  may  hold  aloof  from  all  that 
pertains  to  it.  But  preachers  are  at  liberty  to  do  it  if 
they  wish  to.  Only  as  it  is  commended  as  something 
which  all  of  us  ought  as  preachers  to  adopt  or  as  sup- 
porters of  preachers  to  approve,  has  anybody  the  right 
to  protest.  When  it  is  so  commended,  then  there  is  occa- 
sion for  an  exercise  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  rest  of  us 
of  that  self-executing  duty  which  consists  in  proclaim- 
ing truth  freely.  We  must  strenuously  insist  that  no 
one  is  bound  to  preach  without  pay. 

For  all  regular  work,  adequate  pay  should  be  regularly 
exacted.  This  is  a  natural  social  law  which  cannot  be 
systematically  violated  without  disturbing  the  social  equi- 
librium.   Systematic  violation  by  means  of  force,  produces 


i8o        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

slavery ;  systematic  violation  by  means  of  generosity,  pro- 
duces beggary.  Either  impoverishes  the  worker  and 
pampers  the  idler,  thereby  doing  an  injury  to  both. 

There  is  no  difference,  in  the  economics  of  it,  between 
the  preacher's  vocation  and  other  useful  employments. 
If  it  were  a  duty  of  preachers  to  work  without  regular  and 
adequate  pay,  then  it  would  be  a  duty  of  choirs  to  sing 
and  of  organists  to  play  without  regular  and  adequate  pay. 
It  would  also,  in  that  case,  be  the  duty  of  the  sexton  to 
care  for  the  church  without  regular  and  adequate  pay. 
And,  going  back  of  these  examples,  it  would  be  the  duty 
of  religious  masons  and  carpenters  to  build  churches,  of 
religious  lumbermen  and  quarrymen  and  miners  to  fur- 
nish materials,  and  of  religious  transporters  to  carry  them 
— all  without  definite  or  adequate  pay.  For  these  workers 
are  in  those  connections  but  coadjutors  of  the  preachers 
in  the  labor  of  propagating  such  truths  as  churches  have 
to  offer. 

Precisely  so  with  preachers  of  other  than  ecclesiastical 
truths.  When  they  devote  themselves  to  the  exposition 
and  dissemination  of  such  truths,  they  become,  literally 
in  the  economic  sense,  laborers  in  that  field.  They  are 
workingmen  as  truly  as  a  blacksmith  is ;  and  the  problem 
of  their  livelihood  is  precisely  the  problem  of  his :  to  get 
an  equivalent  for  what  they  give,  and  to  give  an  equiva- 
lent for  what  they  get.  The  fact  that  blacksmiths  em- 
body one  variety  of  truth  in  horseshoes,  while  preachers 
embody  other  varieties  in  sermons,  or  essays,  or  books, 
or  lectures,  or  speeches,  or  poems,  or  pictures,  or  songs, 
makes  no  economic  difference.  The  laborer  who  devotes 
himself  to  writing  useful  books  or  essays  or  poems,  to 
delivering  useful  sermons,  lectures  or  speeches,  to  paint- 
ing useful  pictures,  or  to  making  harmonious  music,  is  as 


THE  LABORER  AND  HIS  HIRE    i8i 

worthy  of  his  hire  as  are  the  laborers  who  manufacture 
the  paper  and  ink  and  type  of  which  books  are  con- 
structed, the  buildings  in  which  lectures  and  speeches  are 
delivered,  the  canvas  and  pigments  that  make  paintings 
possible,  or  the  instruments  from  which  the  musician 
evolves  his  harmonies.  All  this  work  is  cooperative,  and 
one  of  the  cooperators  can  no  more  justly  or  wisely  be 
relegated  to  mendicancy  than  the  others. 

There  is  a  difference,  to  be  sure,  between  exacting  pay 
for  work,  and  working  for  the  purpose  of  exacting  pay. 
The  preacher  or  writer,  including  teachers  of  all  kinds — 
and  including,  for  that  matter,  the  workers  in  every 
field — who  works  merely  for  the  sake  of  pay,  is  not  a  true 
workman.  He  lives  for  himself  alone,  and  for  the  lower 
part  of  himself  at  that.  Useful  work  is,  as  the  adjective 
implies,  work  which  on  the  whole  is  done  not  only  for  the 
sake  of  the  worker  but  also  for  the  sake  of  others.  But 
this  question  of  being  a  worker  merely  for  the  pay,  brings 
up  only  the  individual  motive,  and,  therefore,  concerns 
only  the  individual.  Another  has  no  right  to  judge  him. 
The  motives  of  his  actions  may  raise  an  issue  between 
himself  and  his  Creator ;  they  raise  none  between  himself 
and  his  fellow  men. 

The  strong  feeling  against  exaction  of  pay  for  preach- 
ing truth,  which  prevails  among  the  more  ethereal  agi- 
tators for  social  regeneration,  may  well  proceed  from 
the  disordered  conditions  that  legalized  monopolies  en- 
gender. From  confusing  exaction  of  pay  for  privileges 
with  exaction  of  pay  for  work,  to  advocating  the  total 
abnegation  of  pay,  is  an  easy  transition  of  thought.  The 
abolition  of  pay  for  preaching  naturally  stands  out  promi- 
nently in  this  programme  of  communism.  But  all  exac- 
tions of  pay  are  regarded  by  the  communist  as  sordid, 


i82         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

unbrotherly,  and  spiritually  degrading;  and  consistently 
so,  for  if  it  is  sordid  to  exact  pay  for  any  kind  of  regu- 
lar service,  it  is  sordid  to  exact  pay  for  any  other  kind. 

Whether  or  not  the  idea  that  exacting  pay  for  service 
is  unbrotherly  really  results  from  considering  social  con- 
ditions without  discriminating  between  the  effects  of 
monopoly  and  those  of  competition,  it  certainly  is  no  re- 
sult of  any  balanced  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  things. 

Reflect  a  moment  upon  it: 

Exchange  of  work  is  the  law  of  social  existence  This 
is  a  proposition  which  no  one  will  dispute. 

If  exchange  becomes  unbalanced,  so  that  some  get 
more  than  they  earn  while  others  are  forced  to  earn  more 
than  they  get,  society  falls  into  disorder.  Neither  is  that 
proposition  open  to  controversy. 

The  social  problem,  therefore,  is  how  to  secure  a  prac- 
tical equilibrium  of  exchange  at  which  the  work  that  each 
does  for  others  shall  be  approximately  equal  in  useful- 
ness to  the  work  that  others  do  for  him. 

Obviously,  that  equilibrium  cannot  be  approached  by 
means  of  slavery.  Slavery  takes  forcibly  from  workers 
for  the  benefit  of  idlers.  Neither  can  it  be  approached  by 
creating  legal  privilege,  which  is  essentially  a  form  of 
slavery — a  subtle  form,  but  slavery  none  the  less. 

Can  it,  then,  be  approached  by  some  voluntary  mode 
of  working  regularly  and  mutually  for  one  another  with- 
out exacting  regular  and  fair  exchanges  ?  Possibly.  Who- 
ever denies  this  assumes  a  power  of  fore-knowledge  which 
no  human  mind  possesses.  A  world  is  conceivable  where 
each  would  work  faithfully  to  help  fill  up  a  common  store- 
house, drawing  from  the  storehouse  only  what  he  needs. 
In  such  a  world,  though  some  would  get  more  than 
they  earned  and  others  earn  more  than  they  got,  each 


THE  LABORER  AND  HIS  HIRE    183 

would  act  voluntarily  and  none  could  complain.  But  if  it 
is  an  unwarranted  assumption  of  fore-knowledge  to  deny 
such  a  possibility,  it  is  still  more  unwarranted  to  assert 
it.  So  far  as  human  experience  throws  any  light  upon 
the  question,  a  fair  adjustment  of  work  under  such  com- 
munistic conditions  is  possible  only  in  societies  where 
each  is  bound  to  all  by  religious  inspiration  and  obliga- 
tion. A  single  bull  in  that  china  shop  would  raise  havoc 
with  the  adjustment. 

It  is  consequently  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  com- 
munistic method  of  distribution  will  not  secure  an  approx- 
imately equitable  adjustment  of  work-exchange,  in  society 
at  large,  unless  each  member  of  society  comes  under  the 
influence  of  the  religious  impulse — of  the  impulse,  that  is, 
which  obliges  him  to  love  his  neighbor  equally  with  him- 
self. There  is  a  possibility,  of  course,  that  this  condition, 
too,  would  result  from  communism.  But  at  the  present 
stage  of  development,  he  who  denies  it  has  the  better  of 
the  issue,  upon  the  circumstantial  evidence. 

Now,  when  we  consider  the  eflfectiveness  in  maintain- 
ing a  just  equilibrium  of  distribution,  which  the  exaction 
of  pay  for  work  produces  to  the  extent  that  its  operation 
is  undisturbed  by  legalized  monopoly,  we  may  fairly  ask 
an  explanation,  a  more  rational  one  than  has  yet  been 
put  forth,  of  the  necessity,  in  the  interest  of  equity  and 
brotherhood,  of  trying  to  adopt  a  method  which  cannot 
operate  justly  unless  all  whose  interests  it  involves  become 
just.  To  work  without  exacting  pay  is  to  refer  the 
question  of  equity  in  distribution  to  only  one  of  the  par- 
ties concerned.  What  equitable  necessity  is  there  for 
that?  None  at  all.  The  principle  of  exacting  pay  for 
work  is  incalculably  better.  For  this  principle  refers  the 
question  of  equity  in  each  case  to  the  mutual  agreement  of 


1 84         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

both  parties  concerned.  It  refers  it  to  the  two  persons 
who  are  necessary  to  any  exchange,  and  who  are  the 
only  persons  capable  of  judging  its  equities.  They  must 
agree  or  there  is  no  trade.  If,  therefore,  the  trade  would 
be  beneficial  to  both,  they  will  agree.  And  if  they  are 
economically  equal,  they  will  agree  equitably. 

To  the  fair  operation  of  that  principle  of  exchange  only 
one  thing  is  necessary.  It  is  the  abolition  of  monopoly, 
the  abolition  of  every  privilege  created  by  law  which 
directly  or  indirectly  gives  to  one  party  to  a  trade  an 
advantage  over  the  other. 

To  urge  communistic  ideals  regarding  obligations  to 
work  without  exacting  pay,  instead  of  urging  the  aboli- 
tion of  monopoly,  is  therefore  very  like  dreaming  away 
the  hours  when  active  and  sane  agitation  is  imperatively 
needed,  as  if  they  were  the  listless  hours  of  that  drowsy 
place  where  it  is  always  afternoon.  Whatever  ideal  of 
social  reform  may  be  ultimately  realized,  the  first  rational 
movement  must  be  the  clearing  away  of  obstructions  to 
the  exchange  of  work  upon  the  basis  of  exacting  pay. 
Though  the  time  may  come  when  each  will  put  into  a 
common  store-house  according  to  his  abilities  and  with- 
draw from  it  according  to  his  needs,  he  being  himself  the 
judge  of  both,  the  time  that  now  is  demands  that  each 
shall  put  into  the  store-house  the  equivalent  of  what  he 
takes  out. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WAGES  SYSTEM 

IN  any  general  classification  of  economic  phenomena, 
the  returns  which  one  exacts  and  receives  for  his  work 
would  be  considered  as  his  wages,  no  matter  whether  he 
exacts  and  receives  them  by  making  and  selling  things, 
or  by  hiring  out  to  an  employer.  Even  the  things  he 
makes  himself  and  consumes  himself  go  Into  the  category 
of  wages.  In  other  words,  wages  are  the  returns  for 
work.  But  there  is  a  narrow  use  of  the  term,  in  vogue 
especially  with  business  men,  but  common  also  with 
socialists,  which  restricts  its  meaning  to  the  stipends  that 
mechanics  and  unskilled  laborers  receive  of  employ- 
ers. Clerks  do  not  get  "wages" ;  they  get  "salaries."  Em- 
ployers do  not  get  "wages" ;  they  get  "profits."  Profes- 
sional men  do  not  get  "wages";  they  get  "fees."  But 
ordinary  laborers  who  hire  out  to  an  employer,  they  get 
"wages." 

This  looseness  of  nomenclature  has  been  encouraged 
by  the  mystification  theories  of  political  economy  that 
have  been  running  their  course  through  American  uni- 
versities, like  the  whooping  cough  or  the  measles  through 
a  district  school.  The  most  prominent  characteristics  of 
these  mighty  triflings  with  the  human  reason  are  infinite 
detail  and  slovenly  classification.  They  are  often  so 
absurd  in  those  respects  as  far  and  away  to  outdo  old 
Polonius  in  his  analysis  of  the  drama  into  "tragedy, 
comedy,  history,  pastoral,  pastorical-comical,  historical- 

i8s 


i86         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

pastoral,  tragical-historical,  tragical-comical-historical- 
pastoral,  scene  individable  or  poem  unlimited." 

This  lack-method  method  of  university  "economies'* 
tends  to  give  "scientific"  sanction  to  the  notion  that  the 
phenomenon  of  employer  and  hired  men,  the  hired  men 
who  get  "wages"  as  distinguished  from  those  who  get 
"salaries,"  "fees,"  etc.,  is  different  from  the  general 
phenomena  of  the  exchange  of  services  in  trade.  The 
supposed  difference  is  usually  distinguished  by  referring 
to  that  phenomenon  as  "the  wages  system." 

The  plutocrat  stubbornly  clings  to  "the  wages  system" 
as  something  good,  while  the  socialist  wishes  to  abolish 
it  as  an  unmitigated  evil.  Both  see  it,  however,  in  the 
same  way.  They  see  it  as  Talmage  and  Ingersoll  saw 
religion,  upside  down;  and  like  Talmage  and  Ingersoll 
with  inverted  religion,  one  likes  it  and  the  other  doesn't. 
According  to  this  economic  concept,  labor  is  a  commodity. 
It  is  bought  and  sold  in  the  markets;  and  its  price,  like 
the  prices  of  other  commodities,  rises  and  falls  with  the 
fluctuations  of  demand  and  supply — the  demand  that 
affects  labor  price  being  demand  of  employers  for  wage 
workers,  and  the  supply  being  the  supply  of  men  willing 
to  be  hired. 

To  the  socialist  "the  wages  system"  is  a  system  of 
slavery,  the  wage  worker  being  forced  by  it  to  sell  him- 
self from  period  to  period,  for  life,  in  a  market  glutted 
with  wage  workers.  To  the  captain  of  industry  it  is  a 
convenient  system — he  would  not  call  it  slavery,  for  he 
doesn't  like  the  word — of  making  "capital  and  labor 
friends,  not  enemies,"  by  bringing  them  into  "voluntary" 
cooperation,  like  that  of  the  lamb  and  the  lion  when  the 
lamb  is  within.  To  both  it  appears  to  be  a  normal  devel- 
opment of  competitive  industry,  and  in  this  view  the 


THE  WAGES  SYSTEM  187 

"economic"  cult  of  the  universities  "scientifically"  con- 
curs. 

That  the  industrial  relations  of  employers  and  em- 
ployed are  now  regulated  oppressively  is  true.  That  this 
system  is  a  system  of  slavery  is  equally  so.  The  labor 
market  of  the  present  time  is  a  veritable  slave  mart. 
Labor,  in  the  existing  industrial  regime,  is  nothing  but 
a  commodity.  The  man  himself  is  sold.  Nor  is  this 
shocking  condition  modified  by  the  fact  that  he  is  sold 
by  himself.  It  is  all  the  more  shocking  that  men  should 
be  forced  by  circumstances  to  beg  some  one  to  buy  them. 
Under  this  "wages  system,"  let  it  be  noted  also,  the 
buyer  contracts  none  of  the  personal  obligations  of  the 
slave  master.  He  pays  the  wage-slave  the  cost  of  his 
poor  "keep,"  and  there  his  responsibility  ends. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  recognize  the  "wages  system"  as 
an  industrial  phenomenon  of  the  existing  order  of  things 
(the  existing  disorder  is  a  better  phrase),  and  quite  an- 
other to  conclude  that  it  is  a  system  in  the  sense  of  being 
a  normal  regulation  of  the  industrial  relations  of  employer 
and  employed  in  a  competitive  social  order.  Normally 
the  "wages  system"  as  it  exists  is  utterly  foreign  to  the 
principle  of  free  competition.  It  is  not  a  product  of  nor- 
mal competition;  it  is  a  social  disease  developed  from 
strangulated  competition. 

All  this  may  be  readily  perceived  upon  a  common- 
sense  investigation.  It  is  obscure  only  to  minds  that 
are  over-stored  with  detail  and  over-tutored  in  "scien- 
tific" methods  of  economic  classification.  Clearness  of 
analysis,  not  profundity  of  learning  nor  wealth  of  statis- 
tical information,  is  the  requisite  for  an  examination  into 
the  subject.  By  that  method  of  examination  it  may  be 
plainly  seen  that  the  "wages  system,"  as  we  experience 


i88         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

it  now,  is  a  painfully  distorted  image  of  what  would 
under  free  competition  be  one  of  the  beneficial  phenomena 
of  trade. 

For  understanding  the  nature  of  the  "wages  system," 
industrial  history  does  not  furnish  the  best  material. 
Of  the  usefulness  of  industrial  history  as  a  side  light 
there  need  be  no  question.  But  it  is  from  a  consideration 
of  the  laws  of  human  nature  as  we  perceive  them  in  oper- 
ation in  ourselves  and  in  our  neighbors,  that  the  truest 
explanation  of  the  "wages  system"  is  to  be  had.  We 
do  know  in  a  general  way  how  men  in  general  will  act 
under  given  circumstances  of  a  general  kind.  We  do  not 
know  in  a  particular  way  what  particular  men  will  do 
under  given  circumstances  of  a  particular  kind.  History 
cannot  tell  us;  neither  can  statistics.  The  crudest  gen- 
eralizations from  human  nature  as  to  the  probabilities  of 
human  conduct  in  given  circumstances  are  much  more 
likely  to  be  true  than  the  most  expert  generalizations  from 
historical  or  statistical  data. 

We  know,  for  example,  or  we  can  know  if  we  reason 
about  the  familiar  characteristics  of  human  nature,  what 
men  in  general  would  do  as  to  accepting  or  rejecting 
wages,  provided  they  were  living  in  the  fullest  freedom 
that  the  laws  of  external  nature  permit.  Let  us,  then,  as- 
sume for  the  starting  point  of  an  inquiry  into  the  wages 
system  that  men  are  living  in  such  freedom.  In  other 
words,  let  us  imagine — not  as  romancers  imagine  plots 
and  incidents,  but  as  mathematicians  imagine  axioms — 
what  the  wages  system  would  be  in  healthy  industrial  con- 
ditions. In  that  way  alone  can  we  safely  determine 
whether  the  wages  system  is  essentially  a  plundering  de- 
vice, or  a  normal  manifestation  of  industrial  life,  naturally 
beneficent  but  perverted  by  industrial  disease. 


THE   WAGES   SYSTEM  189 

In  the  fullest  conceivable  freedom  men  would  have 
to  work.  Natural  laws  do  not  permit  them  to  live  with- 
out eating,  and  unless  they  work  they  cannot  eat.  This  is 
manifestly  true  of  men  in  the  sense  of  mankind,  or  as  a 
whole.  Individual  men  may  eat  without  working;  but 
if  they  do,  it  is  only  because  other  men  work  without  a 
full  equivalent.  And  other  men  will  not  ordinarily  do 
that,  unless  coerced.  In  the  absence  of  coercion,  then, 
every  man  must  work  in  order  to  live. 

It  is  instinctive  with  men,  however,  to  do  the  least  work 
for  the  greatest  result.  They  naturally  seek  the  best 
living  in  the  easiest  way.  That  is  the  incentive  to  labor- 
saving  invention.  But  for  this  human  instinct  none  of 
the  devices  for  the  lessening  of  human  effort  and  the 
enhanced  production  of  human  satisfactions  would  be 
utilized.  One  of  the  devices  for  this  purpose,  in  fact  the 
all  inclusive  device,  since  every  other  springs  from  it, 
is  trade. 

No  individual  could  with  his  own  direct  labor  supply 
his  own  wants.  He  could  neither  feed  himself,  nor 
clothe  himself,  nor  house  himself  in  a  civilized  way,  if  he 
were  obliged  to  make  all  his  own  food  and  clothing  and 
shelter.  But  by  acquiring  skill  in  making  one  kind  of 
commodity  he  may  by  means  of  trade  swap  the  particular 
commodities  that  he  makes,  for  those  that  he  wants. 
When  he  does  this  in  freedom,  the  things  that  each 
receives  in  the  trade  are  as  truly  his  earnings,  economi- 
cally and  morally,  as  if  he  had  made  them  himself. 

Here,  then,  is  a  system  which  springs  up  naturally,  not 
merely  as  a  historical  evolution,  but  as  a  spontaneous  ex- 
pression of  human  powers  of  production  acting  under 
the  impulse  of  human  desires  to  get  the  most  with  the 
least  effort.     Industrial  history  records  the  process  of 


ipo         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

development  with  more  or  less  accuracy,  but  the  nature  of 
the  phenomenon  may  be  better  understood  by  logical 
analysis  than  from  historical  data.  This  system  is  natural 
industrial  cooperation  generated  and  maintained  by  trade. 
Every  trade  is  a  private  contract  between  two  individ- 
uals, and  the  myriads  of  such  trades,  interdependent  like 
the  links  of  chain  armor,  produce,  when  made  in  free- 
dom, a  perfection  of  cooperation  to  which  no  premedi- 
tated cooperative  scheme  could  approximate. 

If  we  suppose  that  trade  would  naturally  first  be 
manifest  in  bartering  labor  products — the  actual  order 
of  development  is  neither  known  historically  nor  really 
important  philosophically — we  can  understand  that  fluc- 
tuations in  demand  for  particular  products  would  require 
every  producer  to  be  a  business  man  in  the  sense  of 
keeping  himself  well  informed  regarding  the  multifari- 
ous variations  of  demand  and  supply.  But  this  would 
divert  his  energy  from  direct  production.  He  could  not 
acquire  business  skill  except  at  the  expense  of  skill  in 
his  primary  calHng;  and  that  being  uneconomical,  the 
instinct  we  have  already  described — that  instinct  which 
impels  men  to  satisfy  their  desires  with  the  least  exertion 
— would  lead  some  producers  to  cultivate  business  skill 
at  the  expense  of  skill  of  other  kinds,  and  to  contribute 
to  the  sum  of  cooperative  energies  by  relieving  pro- 
ducers of  the  necessity  of  watching  for  trading  oppor- 
tunities. Men  in  this  new  occupation  would  buy  and  sell 
as  middlemen.  They  would  be  in  a  sense  speculators  in 
labor  products,  buying  when  and  where  demand  was 
low  and  selling  when  and  where  it  was  higher.  The  ser- 
vice they  would  render  would  be  to  save  the  expendi- 
ture by  original  producers  of  their  energies  in  the  pro- 
cesses of  trading.    And  this  would  be  a  genuine  service; 


THE   WAGES   SYSTEM  191 

else  original  producers,  being  free  from  coercion,  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  middleman.  They  would 
themselves  superintend  the  processes  of  trading,  if,  all 
things  considered,  they  could  do  so  advantageously.  And 
if  middlemen  made  excessive  profits,  other  producers, 
being  free  from  coercion,  would  compete  until  the  in- 
comes of  middlemen  had  been  reduced  to  the  level  of 
incomes  for  original  production  requiring  equal  skill  and 
effort. 

So  much  is  obvious.  To  understand  human  nature  in 
its  more  general  manifestations  is  to  perceive  that  in 
the  circumstances  supposed  men  would  act  in  the  manner 
indicated.  If  an  industrial  history  were  to  describe  any 
considerable  community  of  free  men  as  having  in  such 
circumstances  habitually  acted  essentially  otherwise,  we 
should  all  unhesitatingly  say,  So  much  the  worse  for 
that  industrial  history.  Every  sane  man  would  promptly 
reject  such  a  history  as  manifestly  a  romance,  and  rest 
his  conclusions  upon  his  conviction  that  human  nature, 
like  mathematical  axioms,  is  the  same  everywhere  and 
at  all  times. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  see  how  a  legitimate  wages 
system,  the  genuine  and  useful  system  of  which  the  one 
we  are  familiar  with  is  the  distorted  image,  may  develop. 

As  production,  facilitated  by  trade,  divides  and  sub- 
divides and  consequently  becomes  more  complex,  men 
find  it  profitable  to  devote  their  labor  to  the  making  of 
only  parts  of  commodities.  To  borrow  an  illustration 
from  modern  industry,  one  man  does  nothing  but  make 
shoe  soles.  If  all  were  free,  this  would  not  be  done  unless 
those  who  did  it  found  it  advantageous  to  themselves. 
Coercion,  it  must  be  understood,  is  excluded  from  con- 
sideration at  present. 


192         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Or,  we  may  refer  to  such  industries  as  house  build- 
ing or  ship  building.  No  individual  would  be  able  alone 
to  build  a  house  or  a  ship.  He  must  cooperate  with 
others.  With  some,  those  who  work  with  him  upon  the 
house  or  the  ship  itself,  he  cooperates  directly  and  con- 
sciously; but  with  by  far  the  larger  number  he  coope- 
rates indirectly  and  unconsciously  through  trade.  Sup- 
pose that  a  dozen  house  builders  wish  to  build  each  of 
them  a  house.  Since  they  cannot  themselves  do  all  the 
work  that  is  involved  in  house  building,  they  must  trade 
the  products  of  their  labor,  through  the  intricate  net- 
work of  commerce,  with  all  the  thousands  of  unknown 
laborers  in  a  multiplicity  of  occupations  who  cooperate 
with  them.  If  the  house  builders  have  no  accumulated 
products,  or  credit  acquired  in  the  form  of  money  or 
otherwise  for  products  they  have  previously  produced, 
then,  either  to  middlemen,  or  directly  to  the  producers 
of  material,  they  must  "mortgage,"  to  use  a  colloquialism, 
a  share  in  the  houses  they  are  about  to  build ;  and,  having 
built  these  houses,  they  will  own  the  houses  in  propor- 
tion to  their  several  contributions  of  labor,  subject  to  the 
shares  of  the  producers  of  the  materials.  This  would  be 
natural  cooperation  in  house  building.  But  it  would  be 
exceedingly  complex  cooperation  were  it  not  for  the  mid- 
dlemen who  accumulate,  by  buying  from  the  thousands 
of  miscellaneous  producers,  the  materials  and  tools  which 
the  immediate  builders  must  have. 
•  Even  with  these  middlemen  as  labor-savers,  for  such 
they  are,  the  dozen  builders  might  not  find  their  part- 
nership method  the  most  satisfactory.  One  mig*ht  want 
a  house,  and  therefore  be  willing  to  join  the  other 
eleven  in  building  twelve  houses,  each  to  take  one 
for  his  work.     But  if  the  others  did  not  want  houses. 


THE   WAGES   SYSTEM  193 

except  to  trade  them  for  something  else,  they  would  hesi- 
tate about  going  into  the  enterprise  unless  they  were 
assured  of  trading  opportunities.  At  this  point  the  em- 
ployer, as  we  call  him  in  the  distorted  "wages  system" 
of  our  time,  would  step  in  to  correlate  all  the  house- 
producing  forces  and  thereby  promote  the  erection  and 
distribution  of  those  twelve  houses. 

He  would  buy  the  houses  in  advance  of  their  erec- 
tion. That  is,  he  would  say  to  the  dozen  house-builders : 
"Gentlemen,  I  will  marshal  the  material  for  the  pro- 
jected houses,  and  will  pay  you  so  much  apiece  for  them 
as  compensation  for  your  work  after  it  is  done;  or  I 
will  pay  you  so  much  weekly  as  you  proceed  with  the 
work.  If  I  pay  you  at  the  end  of  the  job,  I  shall  pay  you 
more  than  if  I  pay  you  from  week  to  week  as  the  work 
goes  on.  Let  us  agree  together."  The  builders,  being^ 
free  to  accept  or  reject  these  terms,  and  under  no  fear 
of  poverty  if  they  decline,  will  decide,  considering  similar 
offers  from  other  middlemen,  whether  to  accept  the  offer ; 
and,  if  they  do  accept,  whether  or  not  to  take  the  higher 
pay  for  the  houses  when  finished  or  the  lower  pay  in 
weekly  wages.  They  will  do  in  the  matter  what  seems 
most  profitable  to  themselves. 

Suppose  they  take  the  weekly  wages,  preferring  its 
benefits  and  certainties  to  the  greater  benefits  but  lesser 
certainty  and  longer  delay  of  payment  at  the  end  of  the 
job.  Then  we  have  the  wages  system.  But  what  is  it 
other  than  a  fair  and  mutually  beneficial  mode  of  coope- 
ration ? 

These  builders  do  not  sell  themselves.  They  discount 
the  value  of  their  future  work  for  the  sake  of  an  imme- 
diate trade  of  what  they  make  for  what  they  want.  At 
the  end  the  houses  will  have  been  produced  by  coopera- 


194        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

tion,  by  a  fair  partnership  arrangement,  as  truly  as  if  it 
had  been  a  partnership  in  form.  The  only  difference 
is  that  one  of  the  partners  buys  up  the  interest  of  the 
others  in  advance,  in  a  free  contract  which  is  as  beneficial 
to  them  as  to  him.  Though  he  gets  something  which 
they  by  trading  the  houses  themselves  might  get,  yet  he 
does  work  in  effecting  the  trades,  which  but  for  him  they 
would  have  to  drop  house  building  to  attend  to.  In  other 
words,  he  earns  what  he  gets,  and  they  lose  nothing  that 
they  earn. 

Reduced  to  the  last  analysis,  this  wages  system  is  a  sys- 
tem under  which  employer  and  employes  are  free  coope- 
rators,  all  sharing  in  the  final  result,  namely,  those  things 
for  which  the  product  is  traded.  The  employer's  share 
is  compensation  for  his  work  in  effecting  the  trades  that 
marshal  the  materials,  for  his  work  in  superintending  the 
production,  and  for  his  work  in  trading  the  product; 
while  the  shares  of  the  employes  are  compensation  for 
their  work  in  putting  the  materials  together,  without 
being  troubled  either  to  marshal  the  materials  or  to  trade 
the  final  product. 

And  these  shares  must  be  mutually  satisfactory,  for  in 
free  conditions  neither  party  to  the  hiring  contract  need 
allow  the  other  to  oppress  him.  Competition  bearing  not 
in  only  one  direction,  but,  like  the  pressure  of  the  air, 
bearing  with  equal  force  in  all  directions,  maintains  an 
equilibrium  of  compensation  for  every  worker  at  the 
point  of  his  earnings.  The  wages  system,  then,  in  free 
conditions,  is  a  mode  of  cooperation  which  adjusts  itself 
to  the  satisfaction  of  all  the  cooperators  by  their  mutual 
consent. 

Under  that  natural  wages  system  hired  laborers  are  not 
commodities.     They  remain  partners  or  cooperators  in 


THE   WAGES   SYSTEM  195 

production,  discounting  their  demands,  upon  satisfactory 
terms,  in  return  for  exemption  from  certain  kinds  of 
necessary  labor.  But  the  fairness  and  usefulness  of  this 
system  depend  upon  the  freedom  of  its  environment. 

In  coercive  conditions  this  natural  and  most  useful 
mode  of  dividing  labor  and  distributing  its  proceeds  is 
degraded  into  a  distorted  image  of  the  true  wages  sys- 
tem. Socialists  denounce  this  image,  this  spurious  "wages 
system,"  as  a  species  of  slavery.  And  they  are  right. 
When  social  institutions  perpetuate  obstructions  to  trade 
and  foster  the  monopoly  of  natural  opportunities  for 
labor,  so  that  workmen  sell  their  labor  in  a  glutted  mar- 
ket because  they  cannot  utilize  it  otherwise,  then  the 
relation  of  employer  and  employe  ceases  to  be  a  rela- 
tionship of  free  cooperators  and  becomes  in  greater  or 
less  degree  a  relationship  of  master  and  slave.  It  is 
evident,  however,  that  the  seat  of  the  injustice  is  not  the 
wages  system.  It  is  the  effect  upon  the  wages  system 
of  unfree  conditions. 

By  promoting  the  monopoly  of  natural  opportunities 
for  production  and  trade — the  soil  and  the  mine,  factory 
and  store  sites,  rights  of  way  for  transportation,  and  the 
various  other  facilities  which  nature  provides  for  labor, 
and  which  are  more  or  less  included  in  those  enumerated 
— and  by  taxing  labor  in  every  direction  in  which  it  turns 
for  purposes  of  production,  we  have  generated  in  place 
of  free  competition  a  jug-handled  competition,  a  compe- 
tition that  is  al]  one-sided.  Employers  and  employes  do 
not  contract  upon  even  ground.  The  employer  offers  his 
own  terms,  and  the  employe  must  either  accept  or  starve. 
Natural  opportunities  being  closed  by  private  monopoly, 
and  production  and  trade  being  checked  by  taxation 
upon  enterprise  and  thrift,  the  supply  of  labor  tends  con- 


196         ETHICS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

stantly  to  outrun  the  effective  demand  for  labor,  and  so 
to  maintain  a  glutted  "labor  market."  Competition  in 
these  circumstances  is  like  air  pressure  in  only  one  direc- 
tion. Laborers  are  subject  to  the  pressure  of  competition 
on  their  side,  but  are  not  protected  in  equal  degree  by  the 
pressure  of  competition  on  the  other.  The  equilibrium  is 
thereby  disturbed,  and  the  wages  system  becomes  dis- 
torted in  consequence  into  the  shape  that  incenses  the 
socialist  and  pleases  the  captain  of  industry. 

Labor  has  no  proper  quarrel  with  the  natural  wages 
system  which  a  discriminating  examination  into  the  sub- 
ject discovers.  That  system  is  one  of  the  useful  adjust- 
ments of  cooperative  production.  To  make  war  upon  it 
is  to  distract  attention  and  to  divert  reformatory  energy 
from  the  real  evil  that  turns  this  useful  adjustment  into 
an  engine  of  oppression.  We  cannot  destroy  the  wages 
system  without  making  men  over  again,  or  putting  them 
into  governmental  strait  jackets.  We  can,  if  we  will, 
destroy  the  monopolies  which  so  disturb  the  competitive 
equilibrium  as  to  reduce  laborers  to  the  condition  of  de- 
pendent and  desperate  hunters  for  work,  and  to  make 
freedom  of  contract  between  employer  and  employe  a  dis- 
mal mockery.  With  monopolies  destroyed,  freedom  of 
contract  would  be  restored  and  the  "wages  system"  would 
no  longer  be  oppressive. 


CHAPTER  V 

OUR  FOREIGN  TRADE 

FOREIGN  markets  are  commonly  supposed  to  be 
commercial  necessities.  More  or  less  intelligently  it 
is  assumed  that  without  that  outlet  domestic  markets 
would  be  glutted,  to  the  ruin  of  home  business  and  the 
impoverishment  of  home  labor  through  over-production. 
Why  they  should  be  so  popular  as  an  outlet  is  not  clear. 
The  ill  effects  of  over-production,  if  there  are  any,  might 
be  avoided  as  effectually  by  burning  our  surplus  or 
dumping  it  into  the  ocean  as  by  thrusting  it  upon  alien 
peoples.  Probably,  however,  the  preference  comes  from 
a  vague  feeling  that  foreign  markets,  while  absorbing 
our  surplus  wealth,  yield  some  sort  of  return.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  a  notion  that  over-production  at  home  can  be 
prevented  only  by  opening  markets  abroad,  has  in  one 
way  and  another  long  influenced  the  foreign  policies  of 
commercial  nations. 

It  explains  the  "open  door"  policy  in  China,  which 
England  has  made  peculiarly  her  own:  she  asserts  the 
right  of  sending  her  surplus  goods  to  China  upon  the  same 
terms  as  to  entry  which  the  most  favored  nation  enjoys.  It 
is  the  meaning,  paradoxical  as  that  may  seem,  of  opposi- 
tion to  the  "open  door" :  the  object  of  the  nations  that  op- 
pose the  policy  is  a  monopoly  of  Chinese  markets  for  their 
own  surplus  goods.  It  throws  light  upon  the  commercial 
aspects  of  the  colonial  policy  of  this  country:  upon  the 
theory  that  exports  follow  the  flag,  our  colonies  are 
expected  to  absorb  our  surplus. 

197 


ipS         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

In  none  of  these  instances  does  the  question  of  buy- 
ing in  foreign  markets  cut  any  figure.  No  nation  appears 
to  want  to  buy.  All  want  to  sell.  Emphasis  is  placed 
altogether  not  upon  opportunities  for  getting  goods,  but 
upon  opportunities  for  getting  rid  of  them.  So  dominant 
is  that  theory  of  commerce  that  in  common  speech,  and  to 
an  astonishing  degree  in  common  thought,  exporting  is 
classed  as  the  only  profitable  part  of  international  trade. 
No  nation  strives  to  import ;  all  strive  to  export. 

A  little  unbiased  consideration  will  show  this  notion  to 
be  absurd.  No  country  can  get  rich  by  merely  sending 
things  away  without  either  return  or  expectation  of  re- 
turn. As  a  permanent  condition,  excessive  importing  and 
not  excessive  exporting — the  getting  of  wealth  and  not 
the  getting  rid  of  wealth — would  be  the  profitable  experi- 
ence. If  we  are  never  to  pay  for  our  excessive  imports, 
then  the  more  we  have  of  them  the  richer  we  shall  be. 
Isn't  that  obvious  ?  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  never  to 
be  paid  for  our  excessive  exports,  then  the  greater  they 
are  the  poorer  we  shall  become.    Isn't  that  also  obvious  ? 

Profitable  trading  really  consists  neither  in  exporting 
alone  nor  in  importing  alone,  but  in  both  exporting  and 
importing.  As  Henry  George  explains  in  the  chapter 
on  "Exports  and  Imports"  of  his  famous  and  wonderfully 
lucid  book  on  "Protection  or  Free  Trade,"  exports  and 
imports,  "so  far  as  they  are  induced  by  trade,  are  correla- 
tive," each  being  "the  cause  and  complement  of  the 
other" ;  and  "so  far  from  its  being  the  mark  of  a  profitable 
commerce  that  the  value  of  a  nation's  exports  exceeds  her 
imports,  the  reverse  of  this  is  true." 

But  contrary  to  George's  rational  view,  it  is  the  com- 
mon belief,  as  already  noted — a  belief  generated  by  the 
assumption  that  a  country  must  get  rid  of  its  surplus  or 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  199 

suffer  the  "impoverishment  of  over-production" — ^that 
every  energy  of  a  nation  should  be  directed  toward  ob- 
structing importation  and  accelerating  exportation.  Im- 
porting is  mistakenly  regarded  as  augmenting  the  sup- 
ply of  commodities  at  home,  where  there  is  already  a  sur- 
plus, and  consequently  as  tending  to  frustrate  the  prime 
object  of  exportation;  whereas  exporting  in  and  of  itself 
is  curiously  supposed  to  increase  the  national  wealth. 

Statistics  of  excessive  exports,  therefore,  are  commonly 
taken — not  merely  by  uneducated  and  inexperienced 
dupes,  but  also  by  professional  and  business  men — as  con- 
clusive proof  of  national  prosperity.  For  instance,  one  of 
the  leading  newspapers  of  the  middle  West  may  be  quoted 
as  saying  in  all  editorial  seriousness  that  as  "the  nation 
is  now  able  to  export  a  large  proportion  of  its  manu- 
factures," it  is  "thus  annually  increasing  the  total  wealth 
of  the  people  by  many  millions  of  dollars."  The  same 
queer  inversion  of  ideas  appeared  not  long  ago  in  one  of 
the  national  political  platforms,  which  congratulated  the 
country  upon  having  increased  its  excess  of  exports 
enormously — not  its  exports  but  its  excess  of  exports.  The 
people  were  actually  asked  to  believe  that  the  country 
had  prospered  vastly  more  than  ever  before,  because  it 
had  in  a  brief  period  rolled  up  an  immensely  greater  ex- 
cess in  value  of  goods  sent  away  over  goods  received  back 
than  it  had  rolled  up  during  all  its  previous  history. 

So  transparently  absurd  is  this  conception  of  profit  in 
foreign  trade  that  its  advocates  explain  that  they  do  not 
mean  that  excessive  exports  are  not  paid  for,  but  only 
that  they  are  not  paid  for  in  merchandise.  What  they 
urge  is  that  excessive  exports  of  merchandise  are  paid 
for  with  gold  and  silver.  Even  the  late  President  McKin- 
ley  made  this  explanation.    In  a  speech  at  Mount  Horeb, 


200         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

Wisconsin,  October  16, 1899,*  he  definitely  asserted  of  the 
enormous  merchandise  balance  of  exports  then  accumu- 
lated :  "We  send  more  of  our  goods  abroad  and  buy  less 
abroad  than  formerly,  and  the  balance  of  trade  is,  there- 
fore, in  our  favor,  and  comes  to  us  in  pure  gold."  But 
this  explanation  is  completely  discredited  by  treasury 
statistics.  According  to  the  official  treasury  statistics,  f  the 
total  excess  of  American  merchandise  exports  from  the 
foundation  of  the  government  to  June  30,  1900,  was 
$2,046,588,012.  And  instead  of  having  been  paid  for  in 
gold  and  silver  by  excessive  imports  of  those  metals,  that 
excess  of  merchandise  exports  appears  by  the  same  sta- 
tisticsj  to  have  been  increased  during  the  same  period  by 
$1,461,597,093  of  excessive  exports  of  gold  and  silver, 
making  the  total  excess  of  exports  to  June  30,  1900,  run 
up  to  $3,508,185,105.  During  the  subsequent  three  years, 
as  shown  by  the  monthly  Treasury  sheet  of  imports  and 
exports  for  June,  1903,  this  total  of  excessive  exports  was 
increased  by  $1,537,363,442  excess  of  merchandise,  and 
instead  of  being  reduced  by  any  excessive  imports  of  gold 
and  silver  it  was  actually  augmented  by  excessive  exports 
of  those  metals  by  the  amount  of  $53,270,817.  Of  gold 
alone  the  same  reports  indicate  that  we  have  sent  out  of 
the  country  much  more  than  we  have  got  back.  Tabu- 
lating the  Treasury  figures,  we  get  the  following  result: 

September  30,  1790,  to  June  30,  1900 : 

Excess  of  merchandise  exports $2,046,588,012 

Excess  of  gold  and  silver  exports 1,461,597,093 

June  30,  1900,  to  June  30,  1903 : 

Excess  of  merchandise  exports $1,537,363,442 

Excess  of  gold  and  silver  exports 53,270,817 

Total  excess  of  exports  of  all  kinds — merchan- 
dise, gold  and  silver — from  the  foundation  of 
the  government  to  June  30,  1903 $5,098,819,364 

*  Reported  by  the  Chicago  Tribune  of  October  17,  1899. 
t  Monthly  Summary  for  June,  1900,  pages  3424,  3425. 
t  Same  Summary,  same  pages. 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  201 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  discover  in  those  official  figures 
the  slightest  indication  of  any  payment  which  this  country 
has  received  for  the  enormous  aggregate  of  excessive  ex- 
ports it  has  rolled  up  since  1790  and  is  still  augmenting. 
They  certainly  have  not  been  paid  for  with  silver  and 
gold.  On  the  contrary,  not  only  have  we  sent  out  of  the 
country  more  merchandise  than  we  have  got  back,  but  we 
have  also  sent  out  more  silver  and  gold  than  we  have  got 
back. 

The  false  idea  that  exports  are  paid  for  with  gold, 
would  have  no  standing  in  common  thought  if  the 
mechanism  of  foreign  trading  were  better  apprehended. 
Neither  would  the  common  mind  be  so  easily  confused 
with  arguments  for  restricting  imports,  for  encouraging 
exports,  for  protecting  home  markets,  or  for  "invading" 
foreign  markets. 

Foreign  trade,  like  domestic  trade,  is  a  complex  process 
of  swapping.  It  consists,  not  in  selling  alone,  any  more 
than  in  buying  alone,  but  in  both  selling  and  buying.  To 
illustrate,  let  us  consider  a  supposititious  but  essentially 
truthful  example  of  wheat  exportation. 

Richard  Roe,  a  grain  merchant  of  Duluth,  has  by 
domestic  trading  acquired  control  of  a  quantity  of  Ameri- 
can wheat,  in  the  purchase  of  which  he  has  drawn  checks 
upon  a  Duluth  bank,  and  delivered  them  to  the  different 
persons  who  have  sold  wheat  to  him. 

Negotiations  result  in  a  contract  with  a  firm  of  grain 
dealers  in  Hamburg,  wherein  they  agree  to  buy  and  he 
agrees  to  sell  one  ship  load  of  wheat  at  a  stipulated 
price.  Under  this  contract  Mr.  Roe  is  to  charter  vessels 
to  carry  the  wheat  through  the  lakes  and  canals  to  Mon- 
treal, where  an  ocean  vessel,  chartered  by  the  Hamburg 
grain  dealers,  is  to  receive  and  carry  it  to  Hamburg.    Mr, 


202         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

Roe  is  to  be  at  liberty  to  draw  upon  the  Hamburg  grain 
dealers  for  the  contract  price  of  the  wheat,  as  soon  as  it 
shall  have  been  received  by  the  ocean  vessel  at  Montreal. 

While  Mr.  Roe  is  negotiating  for  lake  vessels,  let  us 
turn  momentarily  aside  to  inquire  how  he  has  redeemed 
his  checks  at  the  Duluth  bank.  A  customer  of  the  bank,  in 
good  standing,  he  has  explained  to  its  officers  his  inten- 
tion of  buying  wheat  for  shipment,  and  solicited  credit  at 
the  bank  to  facilitate  his  operations.  Upon  the  faith  of 
his  own  financial  responsibility,  or  of  bonds  or  other 
valuable  paper,  or  warehouse  receipts  for  wheat,  which  he 
deposits  as  security  with  the  bank  from  time  to  time,  or 
of  all  these  together,  the  bank  grants  Mr.  Roe's  request 
and  makes  him  a  loan.  The  amount  of  the  loan  is  not 
paid  to  Mr.  Roe  in  gold  nor  in  any  other  money  form. 
It  is  credited  by  the  bank  to  his  account,  subject  to  draft 
by  his  checks.  And  as  his  checks,  paid  out  for  wheat, 
come  into  this  bank  from  other  banks,  they  are  charged 
against  his  credit.  Little  money  and  no  gold  has  been 
used  by  Mr.  Roe  in  purchasing  his  wheat,  his  payments 
having  been  made  in  checks ;  and  if  all  his  checks  were 
followed  up  through  the  hands  of  the  different  persons 
and  banks  into  which  they  came  before  reaching  the 
Duluth  bank,  it  would  be  found  that  the  Duluth  bank  had 
used  little  or  no  gold  or  other  money  either.  The  whole 
business  has  been  carried  on  by  means  of  notes,  drafts, 
checks  and  other  commercial  paper,  which  in  the  last 
analysis  are  nothing  but  instructions  to  bank  bookkeepers 
for  the  shifting  of  debits  and  credits  upon  bank  ledgers. 
And  just  as  the  business  has  been  done  thus  far,  not 
with  the  use  of  gold,  but  by  means  of  bookkeeping,  so, 
as  we  shall  see,  it  will  be  continued  and  completed. 

We  may  now  follow  Mr.  Roe's  proceedings  in  ship- 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  203 

ping  his  wheat  for  export  to  Hamburg  and  obtaining  pay- 
ment under  his  contract.  Upon  loading  the  wheat  upon 
vessels  at  Duluth,  Mr.  Roe  insures  it  with  a  marine 
insurance  company,  the  company  thereby  becoming  re- 
sponsible for  the  safe  arrival  of  the  cargo  at  Hamburg, 
provided  it  is  properly  carried,  transshipped,  etc.  Be- 
sides insuring  the  cargo,  he  obtains  from  the  masters 
of  the  vessels  at  Duluth  bills  of  lading  certifying  to  the 
receipt  of  the  wheat  on  board  and  contracting  to  deliver 
it  to  the  ocean  vessel  at  Montreal.  Having  done  this, 
he  is  in  position  to  arrange  for  collecting  payment  for 
the  cargo  from  his  Hamburg  consignees,  which  he  does 
through  a  bank. 

It  may  be  that  Mr.  Roe's  Duluth  bank  does  not  engage 
in  foreign  business.  But  that  gives  him  no  concern,  for 
he  is  in  good  credit — or  if  he  is  not,  his  Duluth  bank 
can  put  him  in  that  position — with  some  bank  in  Chicago 
which  does  business  all  over  the  world.  To  the  Chicago 
bank,  therefore,  he  goes  with  his  bills  of  lading,  his  insur- 
ance policies,  and  his  contract  with  the  Hamburg  grain 
dealers,  and  asks  that  bank,  upon  the  security  of  these 
documents,  to  honor  his  draft  upon  the  Hamburg  grain 
dealers  for  the  contract  price  of  the  wheat.  The  Chicago 
bank  examines  into  the  transaction,  and  satisfying  itself 
that  Mr.  Roe  will  be  entitled  under  the  contract  to  pay- 
ment for  the  wheat  as  soon  as  it  is  transshipped  at 
Montreal,  agrees  to  accommodate  him.  He  thereupon 
draws  against  the  Hamburg  grain  dealers  in  favor  of  the 
Chicago  bank  for  the  sum  of  money  stipulated  in  the 
contract  as  the  price  of  the  wheat.  That  is,  he  makes  a 
written  order  to  the  grain  dealers,  commanding  them  to 
pay  that  sum  to  the  Chicago  bank  or  its  order.  Mr.  Roe 
also  conveys  to  the  Chicago  bank,  by  other  documents, 


204        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

all  his  interest  in  the  transaction,  so  that  the  bank  now 
owns  the  bills  of  lading,  insurance  policies,  contracts, 
etc.  In  consideration  thereof  it  discounts  Mr.  Roe's 
draft  upon  the  Hamburg  grain  dealers,  giving  to  him  a 
check  or  gold  or  other  money,  as  he  requires. 

Mr.  Roe  will  take  a  check.  He  wouldn't  travel  to 
Duluth  with  a  bag  of  gold,  when  the  only  object  of  carry- 
ing it  could  be  accomplished  so  much  more  easily  and 
safely  by  means  of  the  check.  Taking  a  check,  then, 
from  the  Chicago  bank,  he  turns  it  over  to  the  Duluth 
bank,  and  thereupon  receives  credit  there,  by  way  of  offset 
to  the  obligations  he  incurred  when  he  originally  bought 
the  wheat.  If  those  obligations  were  only  for  the  wheat 
now  disposed  of,  he  will  have  a  surplus  credit,  which  will 
be  his  profit  on  the  transaction. 

Even  if  Mr.  Roe  had  been  given  gold  by  the  Chicago 
bank,  and  had  carried  it  to  Duluth,  that  would  have  made 
no  difference  as  far  as  the  point  under  consideration  is 
concerned — the  point  that  American  exports  are  not  paid 
for  with  European  gold.  For  the  gold  paid  him  by  the 
Chicago  bank  would  not  have  been  European  gold;  it 
would  have  been  American  gold. 

Thus  far,  then,  no  European  gold  has  been  received 
for  the  wheat.  And  as  Mr.  Roe  and  all  from  whom  he 
has  bought  are  settled  with  and  paid,  no  European  gold 
will  ever  come  to  any  of  them  on  account  of  that  wheat 
deal. 

Should  European  gold  come  to  anybody  in  this  country 
on  that  account,  it  must  come  to  the  Chicago  bank,  or 
to  some  one  claiming  under  it.  Let  us,  then,  follow  the 
further  operations  of  that  bank  in  the  matter. 

Having  possession  of  Mr.  Roe's  insurance  policies,  his 
contract,  his  bills  of  lading  and  his  draft  upon  the  Ham- 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  205 

burg  grain  dealers,  the  Chicago  bank  forwards  those  doc- 
uments or  such  of  them  as  are  necessary,  together  with 
appropriate  instructions,  to  its  correspondent  in  Montreal, 
who  thereupon  obtains  from  the  master  of  the  ocean  ves- 
sel, upon  the  transshipment  of  the  wheat  at  that  port, 
the  final  bill  of  lading  which  gives  financial  vitality  to 
Mr.  Roe's  draft  upon  the  Hamburg  grain  dealers.  The 
draft  and  that  final  bill  of  lading  are  then  forwarded  to 
the  Chicago  bank's  correspondent  at  Hamburg,  who 
secures  an  acceptance  or  formal  acknowledgment  of  the 
validity  of  the  draft  by  the  grain  dealers.  There  is,  con- 
sequently, now  in  the  Hamburg  money  market  a  valid 
order  for  a  shipment  of  gold  from  Hamburg  to  the 
United  States — gold  to  the  value,  let  us  say  for  conveni- 
ence of  illustration,  of  $50,000.  But  no  one  in  Hamburg 
will  really  ship  that  gold  to  America. 

As  the  transaction  now  stands,  so  far  as  the  individuals 
concerned  in  it  are  affected,  the  firm  of  Hamburg  grain 
dealers  owes  $50,000  to  the  Hamburg  bank  with  which 
the  Chicago  bank  corresponds,  and  the  Hamburg  bank 
owes  that  sum  to  the  Chicago  bank. 

The  Hamburg  grain  dealers  will  settle  their  indebted- 
ness by  paying  the  amount  of  it  to  the  Hamburg  bank. 
They  will  probably  enable  themselves  to  do  this  by  bor- 
rowing bank  credit  precisely  as  Mr.  Roe  did  at  Duluth, 
and  so  make  the  matter  one  of  bank  bookkeeping,  instead 
of  a  money  transaction.  But  if  they  should  pay  the  whole 
or  any  part  in  gold,  let  it  be  observed  that  the  gold  would 
not  thereby  get  out  of  Hamburg.  They  would  merely 
pay  Hamburg  gold  to  a  Hamburg  bank,  just  as  the 
Chicago  bank  might  have  paid  Chicago  gold  to  Mr.  Roe. 
No  gold  has  yet  come  into  the  United  States,  and  none 
has  yet  even  left  Hamburg  in  consequence  of  the  wheat 


2o6         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

export  transaction  we  are  considering.  The  transaction 
has  simply  been  reduced  to  a  $50,000  indebtedness  from  a 
Hamburg  bank  to  a  Chicago  bank. 

But  how  can  that  indebtedness  be  discharged  without 
a  shipment  of  $50,000  worth  of  gold  from  Europe  to 
America  ?  The  answer  is  simple.  It  can  be  done  by  fur- 
ther bookkeeping.  Not  only  is  that  the  way  in  which  the 
indebtedness  can  be  discharged,  but  that  is  the  way  in 
which  it  is  most  likely  to  be  discharged,  and  the  way  in 
which  by  far  the  largest  proportion  of  indebtedness  of 
that  kind  always  is  discharged  in  actual  practice.  The 
method  will  appear  as  we  proceed. 

While  Mr.  Roe  was  purchasing  American  wheat  for 
export  to  Europe,  men  in  Europe,  or  Asia,  or  Africa,  or 
South  America,  were  purchasing  foreign  products  for 
export  to  the  United  States.  Their  methods  were  much 
the  same  as  Mr.  Roe's.  Or,  if  they  used  more  coin 
and  fewer  checks  than  he  did,  it  was  used  in  the  countries 
where  the  purchases  were  made.  No  shipment  of  gold  to 
the  United  States  was  involved.  And  in  disposing  of 
their  products  thus  acquired,  these  foreign  Richard  Roes 
followed  very  much  the  course  of  Richard  Roe  of  Duluth, 
with  his  wheat.  They  especially  imitated  him  in  acquir- 
ing the  contract  right  to  draw  upon  their  American  con- 
signees; and,  having  done  so,  in  transferring  that  right 
to  a  bank. 

In  this  way,  let  us  suppose  for  the  sake  of  simple  illus- 
tration, one  or  more  drafts  amounting  to  $50,000  have 
come  into  the  hands  of  a  St,  Louis  bank  from  a  bank  in 
Geneva,  its  Geneva  correspondent — drafts  drawn  against 
merchants  in  St.  Louis  for  goods  shipped  to  them  from 
Switzerland,  as  Mr.  Roe's  goods  were  shipped  from 
Duluth  to  Hamburg. 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  207 

The  St.  Louis  bank  collects  this  sum  from  the  St.  Louis 
merchants  who  owe  it.  They  doubtless  pay  in  checks; 
but  even  if  they  paid  in  gold  it  would  be  American  gold. 
No  foreign  gold  can  be  regarded  as  having  yet  reached 
our  shores  in  connection  with  any  of  these  supposititious 
transactions.  Having  collected  the  amount  of  the  Geneva 
drafts  from  the  St.  Louis  merchants,  the  St.  Louis  bank 
owes  its  Geneva  correspondent  $50,000.  This  equals  the 
amount  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  Hamburg 
bank  owes  the  Chicago  bank;  and  being  equal,  the  two 
debts  cancel  each  other.  No  gold  passes.  The  discharge 
of  each  debt  becomes  a  mere  matter  of  bank  bookkeeping. 

This  international  bank  bookkeeping  is  very  similar 
to  that  between  the  banks  of  any  city  through  their  clear- 
ing house.  In  principle  it  is  identical.  The  European 
clearing  house,  so  to  speak,  is  London;  the  American 
clearing  house,  in  the  same  sense,  is  New  York.  An 
indebtedness  d'je  from  any  bank  in  Europe  to  any  bank  in 
America  is  likely  to  be  settled  through  New  York  bankers. 
So  an  indebtedness  due  from  any  bank  in  America  to  any 
bank  in  Europe  is  likely  to  be  settled  through  London 
bankers.  These  cities  are  the  two  points  to  which  trade 
balances  tend  to  flow  for  settlement.  That  is  what  gives 
them  the  character  of  clearing  houses. 

If,  then,  we  suppose  that  the  Geneva  bank  owed  nothing 
to  the  St.  Louis  bank,  to  offset  the  latter's  indebtedness, 
the  St.  Louis  bank  in  question  would  send,  directly  or  in- 
directly, to  some  New  York  bank  for  a  draft  for  $50,000 
upon  London.  And  if  the  Hamburg  bank  owed  nothing 
to  the  Chicago  bank,  it  would  send,  directly  or  indirectly, 
to  some  London  bank  for  a  draft  for  $50,000  upon  New 
York.  The  motive  would  in  each  case  be  that  drafts  could 
be  bought  for  less  than  it  would  cost  to  ship  gold  across 
the  ocean. 


ao8        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

Having  received  their  respective  drafts,  the  St.  Louis 
bank  would  mail  its  London  drafts  to  its  correspondent  in 
Geneva,  and  the  Hamburg  bank  would  mail  its  New  York 
draft  to  the  Chicago  bank.  They  in  turn  would  transmit 
their  drafts  through  banks  to  the  respective  London 
and  New  York  bankers  upon  whom  the  drafts  had  been 
drawn,  and  with  money  or  bank  credit  would  be  paid 
their  dues. 

This  would  end  Mr.  Roe's  wheat  transaction  with  refer- 
ence to  the  Chicago  and  Hamburg  banks,  as  completely 
as  it  had  been  ended  already  with  reference  to  Mr.  Roe 
himself.  It  would  also  as  completely  end  the  matter  of 
the  St.  Louis  consignment  of  Swiss  goods  with  reference 
to  the  St.  Louis  and  the  Geneva  banks.  The  settlement 
would  now  lie  between  two  London  banks  and  two  New 
York  banks.  And,  still,  let  it  be  noted,  no  gold  has 
crossed  the  ocean  either  way. 

The  two  New  York  and  the  two  London  banks,  with 
whom  the  final  settlement  rests,  are  affected  in  the  matter 
in  this  wise :  The  Wall  Street  Bank  of  New  York,  which, 
let  us  say,  has  sold  the  London  draft  mentioned  above, 
did  so  because  the  Strand  Bank,  against  which  it  drew, 
owed  it  at  least  $50,000.  The  transaction  is  the  same  in 
principle  as  when  a  bank  depositor  pays  out  a  check 
against  his  bank  account.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Thread- 
needle  Bank,  of  London,  which  has  sold  the  New  York 
draft,  did  so  because  the  Broadway  Bank,  against  which 
it  drew,  owed  it  at  least  $50,000.  This  transaction,  also, 
is  the  same  in  principle  as  that  of  a  check  drawn  by  a 
bank  depositor  against  his  account. 

When  the  London  draft  finally  reaches  the  Strand 
Bank,  in  London,  it  is  there  charged  in  the  ledger  against 
the  account  of  the  Wall  Street  Bank,  of  New  York.  Like- 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  I09 

wise,  when  the  New  York  draft  finally  reaches  the  Broad- 
way Bank,  in  New  York,  it  is  there  charged  in  the  ledger 
against  the  account  of  the  Threadneedle  Bank,  of  Lon- 
don. And  that  ends  the  whole  matter,  so  far  as  Europe 
and  the  United  States  are  concerned.  European  banks 
may  yet  have  accounts  to  settle  among  themselves,  and 
American  banks  among  themselves;  but  neither  country 
has  anything  more  to  do  with  the  other  regarding  Richard 
Roe's  shipment  of  wheat  from  Duluth.  All  the  inter- 
national accounts  have  been  balanced  off  in  bank  ledgers ; 
and  the  wheat  has  been  paid  for  with  Swiss  merchandise, 
and  not  with  European  gold. 

It  is  in  that  way  that  by  far  the  largest  proportion  of 
all  goods  exported  from  this  country  are  paid  for.  Gold 
plays  an  infinitesimally  small  part  in  the  phenomena  of 
foreign  trade. 

The  American  Treasury  statistics  show,  as  noted  above, 
that  the  excess  of  merchandise  exported  from  this  coun- 
try from  the  foundation  of  the  government  to  June  30, 
1903,  was  $3,583,951,454.  This  is  called  a  "favorable 
balance,"  because  it  is  assumed  that  it  has  been  or  will 
be  paid  off  with  foreign  gold.  But  not  a  penny  of  it 
has  been  so  paid.  On  the  contrary,  during  the  same 
period  our  excess  of  exports  of  gold  and  silver  amounted 
to  $1,514,867,910.  Thus  foreigners  have  received  from 
us,  since  the  foundation  of  the  government,  in  gold,  sil- 
ver and  merchandise,  $5,098,819,364,  for  which,  so  far 
as  the  statistics  show,  they  have  never  paid  us  anything. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  supposititious  trading  transac- 
tions used  here  to  exemplify  the  process  of  foreign  com- 
merce, vary  from  the  actual  facts  of  our  foreign  trade 
in  this,  that  the  supposititious  transactions  exactly  balance 
each  other,  whereas  in  our  actual  trading  transactions  we 


2IO        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

appear  to  have  sent  away,  in  114  years,  in  gold  and  silver 
as  well  as  merchandise,  thousands  of  millions  more  than 
we  have  ever  received  back  or  can  ever  expect  to  receive 
back.  How  can  that  difference  bring  comfort  to  the 
"favorable  balance  of  trade"  theorist?  Who  would  take 
him  seriously  if  he  insisted  that  the  wealth  of  the  country 
has  been  augmented  by  that  enormous  excess  of  outgo  ? 

The  transactions  supposed  in  our  illustration  assume  a 
normal  and  healthy  condition  of  foreign  trade.  For  in 
the  normal  and  healthy  condition,  exports  are  offset  by 
imports.  Gold  never  crosses  the  ocean,  in  normal  condi- 
tions, except  for  use  as  a  commodity,  like  iron  or  copper. 
When  it  crosses  merely  for  the  purpose  of  paying  bal- 
ances the  condition  of  trade  is  unwholesome. 

But  gold  does  frequently  cross  the  ocean  for  the  pur- 
pose of  paying  balances,  sometimes  one  way  and  some- 
times the  other.  This  happens  when  drafts  cost  more 
than  it  would  cost  to  ship  an  equal  value  in  gold,  a  con- 
dition which  is  determined  by  what  is  known  as  the  "price 
of  exchange"  on  London. 

When  drafts  on  London  can  be  bought  in  New  York 
for  the  bullion  value  of  English  sovereigns — say  $4.86  to 
the  £1 — then  exchange  may  be  said  to  be  normal.  Debts 
and  credits  between  New  York  and  London  are  thereby 
indicated  to  be  about  equal.  If  the  price  remained  at 
that  point,  no  gold  would  pass  either  way,  except  as 
merchandise  in  response  to  demand  for  use  in  the  arts. 
Exports  and  imports  of  merchandise  would  then  mutu- 
ally offset  each  other,  as  in  our  illustration,  where  Roe's 
wheat  is  exactly  paid  for  by  the  Swiss  merchandise. 

But  when  drafts  on  London  are  so  scarce  in  New  York 
that  they  cost  more  than  $4.86  per  £1,  that  means  that 
American  claims  against  Europe  are  growing  less  than 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  211 

European  claims  against  America,  and  if  the  price  rises 
say  to  $4.88,  gold  begins  to  flow  from  America  to 
Europe  in  payment  of  American  obligations.  The  reason 
is  that  this  high  price  for  exchange  is  dearer  than  the 
expense  of  gold  shipments. 

Conversely,  when  drafts  on  London  are  so  plentiful 
in  New  York  that  they  can  be  bought  for  less  than  $4.86 
per  £1,  that  means  that  American  claims  against  Europe 
are  growing  larger  than  European  claims  against  Amer- 
ica. If  the  price  falls  say  to  $4.83^,  gold  begins  to  flow 
from  Europe  to  America  in  payment  of  European  obliga- 
tions. The  reason  is  that  at  this  low  price  for  exchange 
it  is  more  profitable  to  incur  the  expense  of  importing 
gold  than  to  bear  the  heavy  discount  on  drafts. 

Thus  the  ebb  and  flow  of  gold  is  regulated  by  the  rise 
and  fall  of  London  exchange  in  the  New  York  money 
market,  a  rise  approximately  to  $4.88  per  £1  producing 
a  flow  of  gold  from  New  York,  and  a  fall  approximately 
to  $4.83^4  producing  a  flow  to  New  York.  Exchange 
vibrates  between  these  two  points,  seldom  if  ever  rising 
above  $4.88  or  falling  below  $4.83^. 

Foreign  trade,  therefore,  comes  nearer  to  the  ideal 
the  nearer  it  approaches  the  condition  of  our  illustration, 
in  which  Roe's  wheat  was  exactly  paid  for  with  Swiss 
goods.  Like  all  other  trade,  it  is  mere  barter,  plain 
swapping,  in  which  bank  bookkeeping  and  not  gold  coin 
plays  the  important  part ;  and  to  give  more  than  we  get 
is  obviously  to  lose  in  the  swap. 

But  this  country  has  given,  according  to  its  Treasury 
statistics,  enormously  more  than  it  has  got.  Nor  has 
it  been  paid  for  the  excess  with  either  gold  or  silver :  both 
metals  are  considered  in  the  excess.  Neither  has  the 
excess  of  exports  gone  to  pay  for  former  imports:  all 


Ill        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

imports  also  are  considered  in  the  computation  of  the 
excess.  It  could  not  have  been  invested,  either,  in  foreign 
stocks,  bonds,  or  land:  the  flow  of  such  investments  is 
on  the  whole  from  Europe  to  this  country,  not  from 
this  country  to  Europe.*  It  cannot  be  subject  to  sight 
draft :  sight  drafts  have  ruled  so  high  as  to  preclude  that 
inference.  And  it  has  not  been  invested  in  bankers'  short 
loans  to  any  considerable  amountf  Virtually  the  whole 
sum  appears  to  have  been  as  complete  a  loss  as  if  the 
wealth  it  expresses  had  been  chucked  upon  a  bonfire  or 
tossed  into  the  sea.    But  how  can  it  have  been  lost? 

Let  us  consider.  If  it  were  possible  to  secure  exact 
statistics  of  exports  and  imports,  and  trade  were  in  reality 
what  the  term  implies,  untrammeled  swapping,  we  should 
find  imports  exceeding  exports  in  value  in  every  coun- 
try. The  excess  in  each  country  would  represent  that 
country's  profit.  Thus:  An  English  product  worth  $75 
in  London,  let  us  say,  but  $100  in  New  York,  would 
"swap  even"  for  an  American  product  worth  $75  in  New 
York  but  $100  in  London.  Each  country  would  gain 
$25  by  the  swap.    And  it  would  be  found  that  each  had 

*  See  editorial  in  Chicago  Record-Herald  of  August  31,  1903, 
commenting  upon  a  magazine  paper  by  W.  H.  Allen.  The  Rec- 
ord-Herald says  that  Mr.  Allen  "has  made  up  a  table  of  the  sales 
and  purchases  of  shares  by  foreigners  on  the  New  York  Stock  Ex- 
change as  reported  weekly  in  the  New  York  Times  and  New  York 
Evening  Post,  and  he  finds  that  for  the  four  years,  1898-1901,  the 
net  excess  of  purchases  over  sales  was  3,797,000  shares,  while  in 
1902  alone  did  the  sales  exceed  the  purchases,  and  then  by  only 
427,000  shares.  The  net  showing  for  the  five  years  is,  therefore, 
that  purchases  were  in  the  lead  by  3,370,000  shares.  As  to  direct 
sales  and  purchases  outside  the  Stock  Exchange,  Mr.  Allen  finds, 
though  by  less  exact  methods,  a  similar  tendency." 

t  In  the  same  editorial  the  Chicago  Record-Herald  describes 
Mr.  Allen  as  presenting  facts  to  show  "that  instead  of  our  lend- 
ing money  abroad  we  have  been  most  of  the  time  heavy  borrow- 
ers, and  from  this  he  infers  further  that  we  cannot  have  had 
funds  idle  for  permanent  investments  in  foreign  countries  on  any 
large  scale." 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  213 

an  excess  of  imports  to  that  amount.  This  excess  would 
represent  the  value  of  the  greater  desirability  of  the 
article  of  each  country  in  the  markets  of  the  other.  That 
illustrates  the  ideal  condition,  from  which  all  reasoning 
on  the  subject  must  proceed.  That  is  the  equilibrium  of 
foreign  trading. 

Suppose,  now,  that  the  statistics  showed  that  whereas 
Great  Britain  maintains  a  steady  excess  of  imports  (which 
is  the  fact),  implying  that  her  foreign  trade  is  profitable, 
the  United  States  exhibits  a  steady  excess  of  exports 
(which  also  is  the  fact),  implying  that  her  foreign  trade 
is  unprofitable,  what  explanation  should  we  make  ?  Why 
not  turn  to  Great  Britain  and  ask  how  it  is  that  she  flour- 
ishes upon  excessive  imports?  The  answer  might  help 
us  to  understand  what  becomes  of  our  exports. 

Why  is  it,  then,  that  Great  Britain  has  a  towering 
import  balance?  Commercial  profits  do  not  wholly  ac- 
count for  it ;  for  commercial  profits  are  mutual,  and  Great 
Britain's  profits  are  one-sided.  Is  it  not  because  wealth 
from  other  countries  is  sent  to  Great  Britain  to  pay  divi- 
dends on  the  stock,  interest  on  the  bonds,  and  rent  for 
the  land  of  those  countries  which  are  owned  in  Great 
Britain  ?  Is  it  not  for  the  same  reason,  to  put  the  matter 
in  another  form,  that  ancient  Rome  grew  rich  upon  the 
excessive  imports  from  her  tributary  provinces?  or  that 
a  modern  village  prospers  upon  the  excessive  imports  of 
the  produce  of  neighboring  farms,  in  payment  of  rents 
to  retired  farmers  ?  Is  it  not  because  receivers  of  foreign 
tribute  live  in  Great  Britain,  while  the  payers  of  this 
tribute  live  in  other  countries?  That  is  the  unavoidable 
conclusion.  Upon  their  foreign  holdings  British  capital- 
ists receive  dividends,  interest,  and  rent  in  a  perennial 
stream  of  imports,  in  exchange  for  which  no  wealth  leaves 


214        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Great  Britain.  Those  imports  are  profits  upon  past 
transactions,  and  to  that  extent  it  is  with  the  British 
all  import  and  no  export.  Of  course,  their  excessive  im- 
ports tend  to  make  the  country  not  poor,  but  rich.  They 
add  to  the  aggregate  of  British  wealth. 

But  do  not  ignore  the  other  side  of  the  story.  This 
stream  of  excessive  imports  into  Great  Britain  is  a  stream 
of  excessive  exports  out  of  other  countries.  And  as  its 
flow  into  Great  Britain  tends  to  enrich  that  country  by 
giving  it  wealth  without  taking  wealth  from  it,  so  its  flow 
out  of  the  other  countries  must  tend  to  impoverish  them 
by  taking  wealth  away  without  bringing  wealth  back.  If 
Great  Britain  is  enriched  by  excessive  imports,  the  other 
countries  cannot  be  enriched  by  their  corresponding  ex- 
cessive exports,  and  our  own  country  is  no  exception. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  understand  the  true  meaning 
of  our  enormous  excess  of  exports.  To  the  extent  that 
they  really  are  excessive  they  represent  tribute  to  the 
capitalists  of  other  countries.  But  the  excess  is  not  all 
genuine.  In  some  degree  it  is  produced  by  defective 
statistics.  Undervaluations  to  escape  tariff  duties  make 
the  value  of  our  imports  appear  less  than  it  is.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  invoicing  by  American  exporters  of  their 
shipments  at  list  prices  when  in  fact  those  prices  are 
heavily  discounted,  makes  the  value  of  our  exports  appear 
to  be  greater  than  it  is.  These  overvaluations  of  exports 
are  largely  made  by  protected  trusts,  which  invoice  their 
exports  at  the  prices  charged  to  American  consumers,  but 
actually  sell  them  at  lower  prices  to  foreign  consumers. 
By  this  contraction  of  import  values  and  expansion  of 
export  values,  the  excess  of  exports  is  inflated,  though 
to  what  extent  it  is  impossible  to  estimate.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  the  actual  excess  of  exports  is  nevertheless 
very  large. 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  215 

In  some  degree,  also,  our  excessive  exports  are  ac- 
counted for  by  ocean  freights.  Since  foreigners  do  most 
of  the  ocean  carrying  both  ways,  they  earn  most  of  the 
freight  upon  both  imports  and  exports;  and  as  they  are 
foreigners  Hving  abroad,  the  excess  must  be  paid  for  in 
exports.  By  their  service  as  carriers  they  really  add  to 
the  value  of  our  imports ;  but  as  freights  do  not  figure  In 
the  statistics  of  imports,  which  are  valued  at  their  cost 
abroad,  this  country  does  not  appear  by  the  statistics, 
though  the  fact  is  otherwise,  to  get  any  additional  wealth 
in  exchange  for  exports  for  freight  payments.  By  this 
means  also  our  statistical  excess  of  exports  is  inflated. 

Then  there  are  the  expenses  of  American  tourists 
abroad.  Though  this  expenditure  pleases  the  tourists, 
or  they  would  not  make  it,  it  drains  the  country  of  its 
aggregate  wealth.  Such  exportations  do  not  directly  nor 
indirectly  augment  American  wealth,  any  more  than  an 
excursion  from  a  country  village  to  a  city  augments  the 
wealth  of  the  village,  or  the  visit  of  a  farmer's  family  to 
a  circus  augments  the  wealth  on  his  farm.  It  is  the 
country  to  which  the  tourists'  wealth  is  taken  that  is  en- 
riched, not  the  one  from  which  it  goes. 

So,  too,  with  remittances  from  foreigners  in  this  coun- 
try to  their  friends  at  home.  These  gifts  afford  pleasure, 
no  doubt,  to  the  remitters ;  but  there  is  less  wealth  in  this 
country  by  the  amount  of  the  gifts.  Both  countries  can- 
not be  commercially  enriched  by  the  same  gift,  and  as 
the  receiving  country  unquestionably  is  enriched  by  it, 
the  remitting  country  must  be  correspondingly  impov- 
erished. 

But  although  exports  for  freights,  and  gifts,  and  tour- 
ists' expenses  do  take  wealth  out  of  the  country  in  ex- 
change for  which  no  tangible  wealth  comes  back  (unless 


2i6         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

we  consider  as  to  freights  that  they  are  offset  by  the 
value  they  add  to  the  imports  over  and  above  what  the 
statistics  of  imports  show),  yet  none  of  these  items  can 
be  regarded  strictly  as  tribute. 

There  are  items,  however,  that  enter  into  our  excessive 
exports  which  are  distinctly  tribute  and  nothing  else. 

Perhaps  all  dividends  on  stock  and  all  interest  on  bonds 
exported  to  foreign  stock  and  bondholders  ought  not  to 
be  so  considered.  Although  these  items  take  wealth  out 
of  the  country  without  bringing  any  back,  it  may  be 
urged  with  plausibility  as  to  some  of  them  that  they  rep- 
resent earnings  of  previously  invested  capital.  But  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  our  exports  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  government  have  been  so  vastly  greater  than 
our  imports  for  the  same  period  as  to  challenge  that  argu- 
ment at  the  threshold.  We  appear,  by  the  statistics,  not 
to  have  received  any  great  amount  of  capital  at  any  time 
in  excess  of  our  current  exports.  Such  capital  as  for- 
eigners have  let  us  have  must  have  been  for  the  most 
part  what  we  ourselves  produced  for  their  benefit — capi- 
tal that  never  went  out  of  the  country. 

But  the  plea  that  some  of  our  apparently  unpaid-for 
exports  are  made  up  of  earnings  of  foreign  capital  has 
no  possible  application  to  items  of  interest  on  government 
bonds.  Neither  does  it  apply  to  interest  on  most  State 
and  municipal  bonds ;  nor  to  a  large  percentage  of  divi- 
dends declared  by  railroad,  mining,  and  other  monopoly 
corporations;  nor  yet  to  so  much  of  real  estate  rents 
as  are  paid  for  the  use  of  land  as  distinguished  from  the 
use  of  its  improvements.  Interest  on  government  bonds  is 
not  interest  produced  by  the  investment ;  it  is  a  tax  levied 
by  the  law-making  power  to  reward  lenders  of  capital 
burned  up  in  powder  long  ago.    We  may  honorably  owe 


OUR   FOREIGN   TRADE  217 

it,  but  its  payment  does  not  in  any  sense  represent  an 
increase  in  the  wealth  of  our  people  earned  by  the  capital 
invested.  It  is  not  produced  by  the  capital.  Much  of  the 
interest  on  State  and  municipal  bonds  is  also  a  mere 
tax.  The  same  thing  is  essentially  true  of  all  that  part 
of  the  dividends  of  monopoly-owning  corporations  which 
constitutes  exactions  under  their  monopoly  franchises 
as  distinguished  from  the  earnings  of  their  plants.  And 
the  rent  of  land  as  distinguished  from  the  rent  of  its 
improvements  is  in  the  same  category.  All  the  wealth 
that  goes  abroad  for  such  payments  is  tribute. 

Most  distinctly  so  is  the  rent  of  land.  A  Lord  Scully, 
for  instance,  buys  large  stretches  of  farming  territory  in 
this  country  for  a  few  dollars  an  acre.  The  payment  for 
it  is  either  an  offset  against  previous  exports  or  is  an 
actual  import  into  this  country.  But  after  a  few  years  his 
tenants  in  this  country  pay  more  in  rent  for  that  land 
every  year  than  the  absentee  landlord  gave  for  the  fee. 
That  point  being  reached,  American  exports  on  that  ac- 
count become  a  continuing  and  constantly  increasing 
drain.  Nothing  comes  back  for  them.  They  are  as 
truly  tribute  as  are  Irish  rents  to  English  landlords.  In- 
deed, they  are  the  same  thing.  It  is  of  such  payments  that 
our  swelling  export  balance  is  largely  composed. 


CHAPTER   VI 

AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION  AND  SURVEY 

TO  know  how  a  loaf  of  bread  is  made  and  distributed 
is  to  know  more  of  political  economy  than  all  the  text 
books  and  all  the  statistics  can  teach.  That  was  Emer- 
son's idea,  and  Emerson  was  right.  But  his  idea  does 
not  imply  that  one  must  know  all  the  chemical  and  me- 
chanical processes.  They  are  manifold  and  complex, 
and  it  would  be  impossible  for  one  head,  large  or  small, 
to  hold  so  much.  Even  if  there  were  a  human  brain  of 
this  extraordinary  capacity,  it  would  very  likely  be  inca- 
pable of  intelligently  using  the  knowledge  it  held.  For- 
tunately, therefore,  what  is  necessary  is  not  comprehen- 
sive knowledge  of  technical  processes,  which  is  impossible, 
but  intelligent  apprehension  of  familiar  economic  phe- 
nomena, which  is  not  difficult. 

The  Economic  Mysteries. 

A  child  who  knows  how  to  get  candy  can  be  inducted 
into  the  economic  mysteries.  Isn't  candy  got  at  the  store 
with  pennies?  So  is  bread.  A  child  can  understand 
that.  But  the  same  is  true  of  everything  else  with  which 
the  human  family  satisfy  their  material  wants.  Whether 
their  wants  be  of  the  stomach  for  food,  of  the  body  for 
clothing  and  shelter,  of  the  taste  for  superior  qualities 
of  food  and  clothing  and  shelter,  or  of  any  of  the  desires 
for  any  other  of  the  infinite  variety  of  material  things, 
those  wants  are  all  satisfied  by  buying  objects  as  candy 

218 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    219 

and  bread  are  bought — by  buying  them,  so  to  speak,  at 
the  store  with  pennies.  In  civiHzed  society  every  material 
desire  can  be  satisfied  as  it  arises,  simply  by  giving  money 
for  the  things  that  satisfy  it. 

But  why  is  that  true  ?  Why  do  pennies  so  easily  fetch 
us  candy  or  bread  or  other  good  things  ?  They  wouldn't 
if  we  were  not  living  in  civilized  society.  On  a  desert 
island  no  amount  of  money  could  procure  a  satisfaction 
for  even  the  least  of  human  desires.  It  cannot  be,  then, 
that  money  is  the  final  explanation  of  economic  processes. 
It  is  evidently  only  a  superficial  expression  of  something 
more  fundamentally  characteristic  of  civilized  life. 

What  that  thing  is  should  appear  upon  a  moment's 
reflection.  If  money  will  procure  satisfaction  for  any 
want,  in  civilized  society  where  trade  is  a  universal  phe- 
nomenon, and  only  for  a  few  in  savage  society  where 
there  is  but  little  trade,  and  none  at  all  on  a  desert  island 
where  there  is  no  trade,  then  money  must  be  merely  a 
trade  token.  It  must  be  something,  that  is,  which  passes 
current  among  civilized  people  not  because  anyone  wants 
it  for  itself,  but  because  it  will  buy  other  things — things 
that  are  wanted  for  themselves.  And  isn't  this  a  fact 
which  every  thoughtful  man  knows  ?  It  is  not  money  but 
trade  that  enables  the  child  to  buy  candy,  and  his  mother 
to  buy  bread,  or  his  father  to  buy  a  house.  If  the  child's 
penny  could  not  serve  the  storekeeper  in  trade  when  he 
goes  to  buy  what  he  wants  for  himself,  he  would  not 
take  it  in  trade  when  he  offers  to  sell  candy  to  the  child. 
He  does  not  want  it  except  to  trade  it  again.  It  is  simply 
a  token  whereby  he  swaps  what  he  sells  for  it  for  what 
he  buys  with  it.  And  this  fact  about  the  penny  is  true  of 
all  money.  Th^  economic  phenomenon,  therefore,  which 
is  more  fundamental  than  money,  without  which  money 


220        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

would  be  of  no  use  and  the  object  of  no  one's  desire,  is 
trade. 

Of  course  we  know  that  trade  consists  in  swapping 
things.  But  why  is  anything  swapped  for  another  thing? 
Why  are  things  traded?  You  cannot  trade  the  free  air. 
You  cannot  trade  the  waters  of  the  Great  Lakes.  There 
are  kinds  of  things,  certainly,  which  cannot  be  traded. 
Yet  there  are  other  kinds  of  things  in  great  abundance 
and  bewildering  variety  which  not  only  can  be  traded, 
but  are  in  continual  process  of  trade.  Why?  What  is 
it  that  distinguishes  the  tradable  from  the  untradable? 

Isn't  it  obviously  value?  Things  having  no  value  are 
not  tradable,  but  things  having  value  are  tradable. 

As  value  is  commonly  expressed  in  terms  of  money,  it 
being  customary  to  say  of  a  valuable  thing  that  it  is 
worth  so  many  pennies  or  so  many  dollars,  it  might  seem 
that  we  had  now  got  back  again  to  money.  But  that  is 
not  the  fact.  Though  value  is  expressed  in  terms  of 
money,  it  does  not  depend  upon  money.  Things  would 
have  value  all  the  same  even  if  there  were  no  money 
to  express  their  values.  Money  bears  much  the  same 
relation  to  value  that  the  alphabet  bears  to  language  or 
to  thought.  It  furnishes  convenient  symbols  for  ex- 
pression, but  is  not  the  thing  expressed. 

Value  is  the  expression  of  a  comparison.  As  exempli- 
fied in  trade  it  is  the  name  of  the  ratio  at  which  trad- 
able things  are  exchanged.  If,  for  illustration,  one  loaf 
of  bread  exchanges  for  five  sticks  of  candy,  the  ratio  of 
bread  to  candy  is  as  one  to  five.  It  follows  that  if  you 
give  one  penny  for  your  stick  of  candy  you  must  give 
five  for  your  bread ;  or,  expressing  these  values  in  terms 
of  money,  that  bread  loaves  are  worth  five  pennies  and 
candy  sticks  are  worth  one  penny.    Yet  it  is  value  itself, 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    221 

and  not  its  capability  of  expression  in  terms  of  money, 
that  makes  things  tradable.  The  immediate  cause  of 
trade  is  value. 

It  cannot  be,  however,  that  value  is  the  final  explana- 
tion of  economic  processes.  There  must  be  something 
still  more  fundamental.  To  say  that  value  is  the  economic 
base,  is  almost  as  superficial  as  to  say  that  money  is. 
Value  is  not  economically  self-existent.  It  in  turn  must 
have  an  economic  cause. 

The  cause  of  value  is  serviceability,  in  the  restricted 
sense  of  capability  of  serving  a  human  purpose.  Unless 
an  object  is  capable  of  ministering  to  some  human  de- 
sire, unless,  that  is,  it  possesses  the  quality  of  serviceabil- 
ity, it  cannot  exhibit  the  phenomenon  of  value.  Value  rests 
upon  serviceability.  But  upon  serviceability  plus  some- 
thing else.  For  the  air  is  incalculably  serviceable,  the 
waters  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  of  the  oceans  are  im- 
mensely so,  the  sunlight  is  indispensably  so ;  yet  none  of 
these  has  value.  It  will  be  observed,  however,  that  while 
they  are  serviceable  they  are  not  difficult  to  get. .  They  are 
not  scarce.  On  the  other  hand,  serviceable  objects  which 
are  difficult  to  get,  serviceable  objects  which  are  scarce, 
invariably  exhibit  value.  The  cause  of  value,  then,  is 
serviceability  in  a  condition  of  scarcity.  Inasmuch,  how- 
ever, as  it  is  not  scarcity  but  serviceability  that  causes 
normal  desire  for  anything,  serviceability  and  not  scarcity 
is  the  active  or  inciting  cause  of  value. 

True,  however,  as  this  obviously  is,  we  have  not  yet 
reached  the  end  of  our  economic  exploration.  For 
serviceability,  though  the  inciting  cause  of  value,  is  itself 
an  effect  of  anterior  causes.  If  bread  were  not  valuable 
it  wouldn't  be  tradable.  If  it  were  not  serviceable  it 
wouldn't  have  value.    But  if  it  didn't  exist  it  couldn't  be 


222         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

serviceable.  So  its  serviceability,  its  value,  and  its  trad- 
ability,  all  depend  in  turn  upon  its  existence.  This  seems 
rather  obtrusively  obvious,  but  the  most  obvious  facts 
are  sometimes  ignored. 

Now,  bread  does  not  exist  naturally.  It  is  an  artificial 
object.  And  that  is  true  of  the  great  mass  of  tradable 
objects.  They  are  artificial.  Some  tradable  objects,  it 
is  true,  are  not  artificial;  but  these  are  tradable  for  a 
secondary  reason — because  they  are  capable  of  securing 
in  some  way  service  from  articles  that  are  artificial.  It 
is  the  serviceability  that  is  embodied  or  is  capable  of 
being  embodied  in  artificial  objects,  that  makes  anything 
tradable.  We  find,  therefore,  that  beneath  all  the  eco- 
nomic phenomena  we  have  thus  far  explored — beneath 
money,  trade,  value  and  serviceability;  beneath  all  these, 
in  the  sense  of  being  their  cause — are  the  artificial  objects 
which  possess  the  quality  of  serviceability,  to  which  value 
therefore  attaches  in  conditions  of  scarcity,  which  are 
consequently  tradable,  and  which  may  for  that  reason  be 
bought  with  money. 

What  technical  name  we  give  to  such  objects  is  of  no 
moment,  provided  we  always  use  the  same  name  to 
designate  those  objects,  and  use  it  for  nothing  else.  Then 
why  not  distinguish  them  as  "wealth,"  which  is  a  good 
old  economic  term  ?  Using  the  term  strictly  in  that  sense, 
we  are  able  to  say  that  all  the  economic  levels  thus  far 
explored  rest  upon  wealth. 

But  the  end  is  not  yet,  for  wealth  is  not  self-existent. 
Consisting  of  artificial  objects  it  cannot  be.  As  the 
term  "artificial"  implies,  such  objects  are  produced 
(which  means  drawn  forth)  by  human  art.  If  man 
didn't  exist,  they  would  not  appear.  If  man  didn't 
labor,  they  would  not  come  forth.    Without  human  exer- 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    223 

tion  of  brain  and  brawn,  there  would  be  no  wealth. 
Wealth,  therefore,  is  properly  called  a  labor  product.  So 
we  trace  all  economic  processes  back  to  human  labor. 

Every  material  thing  is  brought  to  us  by  human  labor 
— our  own  labor  or  some  one  else's ;  and  if  at  any  stage 
in  the  process  labor  were  to  stop,  our  desires  would 
forthwith  begin  to  go  unsatisfied.  At  first  we  should 
have  to  stint  ourselves,  perhaps,  only  a  little;  but  soon 
a  little  more,  and  then  more,  until  almost  every  want 
would  plead  in  vain  for  even  the  least  satisfaction.  The 
whole  process  of  production  and  distribution  is  a  process 
of  labor.  The  raw  materials  are  produced  by  labor;  the 
tools  and  machinery,  simple  and  complex,  little  and  big, 
are  made  and  repaired  and  re-made  by  labor;  the  trans- 
portation facilities  are  constructed  and  operated  by  labor ; 
the  factories  and  store  buildings  are  erected  and  utilized 
by  labor. 

In  the  loaf  of  bread  there  are  the  labor  of  the  farmer 
who  raises  and  harvests  grain,  and  of  the  miller  who 
grinds  it;  of  the  mechanics  who  make  the  tools  and 
machinery  for  both  farmer  and  miller,  and  of  those  who 
make  the  tools  and  machinery  for  these  mechanics ;  of  the 
miner  who  unearths  the  metals  and  the  woodmen  who 
cut  the  lumber ;  and  then  again  of  those  who  make  miners' 
and  lumbermen's  tools ;  of  the  labor  that  builds  railroads 
and  the  labor  that  operates  them;  of  the  labor  of  the 
baker  and  that  which  equips  bakeries ;  of  the  labor  of 
the  banker  and  the  banker's  clerks  in  giving  mobility  to 
capital,  and  of  that  which  constructs  and  cares  for  their 
buildings,  as  well  as  that  which  through  other  complex- 
ities of  trade  furnishes  them  with  stationery  and  with 
business  furniture ;  and  so  on  to  the  labor  that  slices  the 
loaf  at  last  and  that  which  produces  the  knife  with  which 


224        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

it  is  sliced.  From  beginning  to  end  it  is  all  a  labor  pro- 
cess. Nor  is  it  the  labor  of  the  past  that  keeps  the  process 
going ;  it  is  the  labor  of  the  present. 

The  wealth  we  buy  with  money,  then,  for  the  satisfac- 
tion of  our  desires,  is  in  the  last  analysis  the  product  of 
current  human  labor. 

The  Fundamental  Factors. 

We  have  now  reached  a  final  explanation.  Beginning 
with  the  economic  phenomenon  next  at  hand,  and  there- 
fore most  familiar,  that  of  buying  satisfactions  with 
money,  we  have  proceeded,  step  by  step,  to  the  consid- 
eration of  related  phenomena  more  remote.  Thus  we 
have  accounted  for  money  by  trade,  for  trade  by  value, 
for  value  by  serviceability,  for  serviceability  by  artificial 
objects,  and  for  artificial  objects  by  human  labor.  It  is 
as  if  in  making  a  subterranean  exploration,  we  had  first 
laid  off  the  surface  soil  and  then  cut  through  the  layers 
of  different  material,  one  after  another,  down  to  rock 
bottom.  And  human  labor  is  the  rock  bottom  of  economic 
research.  It  supports  all  the  super-incumbent  layers — 
artificial  objects,  serviceability,  value,  trade  and  money. 

Unlike  the  other  economic  phenomena  through  which 
we  have  picked  our  way,  labor  is  economically  self-ex- 
istent. It  has  no  anterior  cause  on  the  economic  plane. 
For  labor  is  a  technical  term  descriptive  of  the  human 
family  producing  satisfactions  for  human  desires.  And 
while  that  phenomenon  is  indeed  an  effect  (as  what  short 
of  Omnipotence  is  not?),  yet  its  cause  lies  beyond  the 
field  of  economic  inquiry.  It  is  not  an  effect  of  anterior 
economic  causes.  On  the  economic  plane  it  is  itself  the 
cause  of  all  effects. 

Nevertheless,   labor   cannot   create.     It   cannot  make 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    1225 

something  out  of  nothing.  It  cannot  say,  "Let  there  be 
bread!"  and  there  is  bread.  So  far  from  creating,  labor 
has  only  the  power  to  produce.  That  is,  it  can  draw 
forth  artificial  objects  by  so  adapting  the  matter  and 
forces  which  nature  supplies  as  to  fit  them  for  serving 
human  purposes.  It  can  change  the  shape  and  place  of 
natural  things. 

For  instance,  it  can  produce  coal  by  changing  its  shape 
from  the  mass  in  the  vein  to  broken  pieces  in  the  mining 
chamber;  it  can  still  further  produce  it  by  changing  its 
place  from  the  bottom  of  the  mine  to  the  mouth ;  it  can 
produce  it  further  yet  by  changing  its  place  from  the 
mouth  of  the  mine  to  the  coal  bin,  and  finally  to  the 
stove  or  grate  of  the  distant  consumer.  Or,  it  can  pro- 
duce houses  by  changing  the  forms  of  trees,  rock,  sand, 
clay  and  ore,  and  assembling  them  at  one  point  and  in 
one  form  or  shape  from  many  distant  points  and  different 
shapes. 

But  labor  can  produce  nothing  without  natural  resources. 
Tools  it  does  not  need.  For  labor,  considered  as  a  coop- 
erative whole,  makes  all  its  own  tools.  They  are  artificial 
objects — wealth.  But  it  does  need  raw  materials  and 
working  places  upon  the  earth.  To  use  the  inclusive 
economic  term,  it  does  need  "land."  Land  is  the  one  thing, 
the  only  thing,  that  labor  must  have  and  cannot  make. 
Land  is  the  sole  condition  of  all  the  economic  processes 
that  labor  generates.  For  mining,  it  must  have  access  to 
mining  land ;  for  farming,  to  agricultural  land ;  for  urban 
building,  to  urban  land  sites ;  for  railroading,  to  rights 
of  way  over  land ;  for  sailing,  to  docks ;  and  so  on.  Labor 
without  land,  even  if  life  were  possible,  would  be  utterly 
powerless  to  generate  the  economic  processes.  On  the 
other  hand,  land  without  labor  is  unproductive  of  arti- 


226         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

ficial  satisfactions.  It  only  furnishes  the  natural  store- 
house and  workshop  for  labor,  leaving  labor  to  do  the 
rest.  Though  labor  generates  the  economic  processes,  it 
must  have  access  to  land  to  do  so.  And  land  it  cannot 
produce.  Land  is  not  an  artificial  object,  but  a  natural 
one.  But  with  access  to  land,  labor  produces  in  abund- 
ance all  those  artificial  objects  having  value,  which  we 
have  called  "wealth." 

Labor  is  fundamental  and  land  is  fundamental.  They 
are  the  prime  factors  of  all  economic  processes;  labor 
being  the  initial  or  active  force  and  land  the  responsive 
or  passive  condition.  Thus  labor  produces  wealth  from 
land,  and  land  yields  wealth  to  labor. 

Land,  Labor  and  Wealth,  then,  are  the  three  subjects 
of  first  importance  in  all  economic  problems.  Land 
passively  yields  matter,  space  and  force  to  the  knowl- 
edge and  skill  of  man.  The  active  application  of  that 
knowledge  and  skill  to  those  passive  elements  is  Labor; 
and  its  product — the  natural  matter  and  energy  so  shaped 
and  adjusted  as  to  satisfy  the  desires  that  stirred  the 
laborer  to  activity — is  Wealth.  From  this  starting  point 
the  steps  we  have  taken  may  be  retraced,  and  the  way 
be  more  minutely  surveyed.  Back  to  money  and  its 
functions,  through  all  the  mazes  of  serviceability,  value 
and  trade,  it  is  now  possible  to  go  with  a  certainty  born 
of  confidence  in  familiarity  with  the  route.  We  have 
discovered  the  most  fundamental  of  economic  princi- 
ples, and  in  their  light  problems  otherwise  perplexing 
may  be  easily  and  correctly  solved. 

Land. 

Let  us  begin  this  survey  with  a  somewhat  more  ex- 
tended examination  into  the  economic  characteristics  of 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    227 

Land,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  sole  condition  of 
the  economic  processes  that  Labor  at  any  time  generates 
or  maintains. 

Land  is  the  natural  storehouse  from  which  man  draws 
all  his  supplies,  and  the  one  foundation  upon  which  he 
rests  all  his  structures.  It  includes  everything  except 
the  human  family,  and  such  objects  as  the  human  family 
have  altered  in  condition  so  as  to  adapt  them  to  human 
desires.  Not  only  the  soil,  but  the  water,  the  atmosphere, 
the  sunlight,  building  sites,  railway  sites,  mineral  deposits, 
forests,  and  even  the  birds  of  the  air,  the  fishes  of  the 
sea,  and  the  wild  animals  that  roam  the  earth,  are  included 
in  this  economic  category. 

It  may  seem  absurd  to  designate  animals  and  water 
and  air  and  sunlight  as  "land,"  a  term  habitually  asso- 
ciated with  the  soil  and  used  in  contradistinction  to  air 
and  water.  But  we  are  not  now  considering  physics  or 
natural  history.  The  subject  of  our  inquiry  is  the  eco- 
nomic relations  of  the  human  family  to  its  environment. 
We  must  distinguish  things,  therefore,  by  their  economic 
peculiarities. 

For  that  purpose  some  term  having  no  colloquial 
connotations  might  be  much  better  than  "land" ;  some 
word  meaning,  for  example,  "material  environment"  or 
"earth  chance."  But  one  word  will  do  as  well  as  an- 
other if  we  are  careful  to  think  of  it  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  agree  to  use  it.  So  in  economic  matters  we  may 
speak  of  "land"  without  limiting  our  meaning  to  what 
the  farmer  means  when  he  speaks  of  plowing  "land,"  or 
the  sailor  when  upon  sighting  a  shore  line  he  announces 
the  fact  with  a  "land,  ho!"  or  the  ocean  traveler  when 
he  puts  his  foot  upon  the  dock  and  tells  you  he  has 
"landed."    We  use  it  as  a  technical  term  to  distinguish 


ii2S         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

sharply  from  all  other  things  the  natural  environment 
of  the  human  family.  As  all  must  agree,  man  has  a 
natural  environment  without  which  he  could  not  work, 
could  not  produce  satisfactions,  could  not  live  at  all — an 
environment  which  is  to  his  life  of  wonderful  variety 
what  bodies  of  water  are  to  the  simple  life  of  fish  and 
the  upper  air  to  that  of  birds.  This  environment  includes 
every  natural  thing  that  man  needs,  ranging  from  air  for 
breathing  to  all  the  matter  and  all  the  forces  of  nature, 
including  animal  life,  which  he  may  alter  in  condition 
so  as  to  adapt  it  to  the  satisfaction  of  any  of  his  desires. 
For  convenient  reference  to  that  environment,  some 
simple  technical  term  is  needed,  and  the  one  with  which 
political  economists  have  long  been  familiar  is  Land. 

This,  as  already  explained,  is  the  sole  passive  or  re- 
sponsive condition  of  economic  processes.  No  economic 
process  is  possible  without  it.  It  always  has  been,  is  now, 
and,  though  human  achievement  accomplish  untold 
wonders,  always  must  be,  one  of  the  two  indispensable 
factors  of  producing  satisfactions  for  human  desires. 
Any  other  conclusion  is  unthinkable. 

Labor. 

Without  Labor,  however.  Land  would  yield  no  arti- 
ficial thing.  Labor  is  the  other  indispensable  factor.  As 
Land  is  the  passive  economic  condition,  so  Labor  is  the 
initial  economic  force.  It  is  Labor  applied  to  and  oper- 
ating upon  and  in  conjunction  with  Land  that  causes 
every  other  economic  process.  Or,  to  put  the  same 
thought  in  another  form,  it  is  by  means  of  the  energies 
of  man,  mental  and  physical,  applied  to  and  operating 
upon  and  in  conjunction  with  the  material  energies  of 
his  natural  environment,  that  all  artificial  satisfactions 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    229 

of  human  desires  are  produced.  For  Labor,  like  Land,  is 
a  technical  term  of  political  economy,  and  as  such  must  be 
understood  more  comprehensively  than  in  common  speech. 
It  designates  human  energies,  mental  and  physical,  in 
so  far  at  least  as  they  are  devoted  to  economic  processes. 
So  it  comprehends  all  serviceable  v^^ork — of  mind  or 
muscle,  with  skill  or  without,  as  hired  man  or  "boss"; 
and  whether  on  farms  or  in  factories,  out  upon  the  sea 
or  down  in  the  mine,  up  in  the  high  stories  of  sky- 
scrapers or  away  from  civilization  in  the  depths  of  prime- 
val forests,  in  the  hospital  or  the  pulpit,  at  the  bar  or 
the  easel  or  the  teacher's  desk,  in  store  or  warehouse 
or  railroad  train  or  street  car  or  public  office.  All 
service  is  Labor,  whether  it  be  a  service  rendered  directly, 
like  that  of  the  barber  who  shaves  you,  or  one  rend- 
ered indirectly,  like  that  of  the  mechanic  who  impresses 
his  energy  upon  matter,  thereby  producing  exchangeable 
objects.  Wherever  or  however  human  energy  responds 
to  the  cravings  of  human  desire,  the  expenditure  of  that 
energy  for  that  purpose  is  Labor. 

Wealth. 

When  this  application  of  the  energies  of  man  to  his 
natural  environment  produces  substantial  results,  those 
results  are  distinguished  by  the  technical  term  Wealth. 

Wealth  is  drawn  from  external  nature  by  man,  who, 
by  changing  natural  materials  in  form  or  place  or  both, 
produces  such  artificial  objects  as  tend  to  satisfy  human 
desire.  In  technical  phrase :  fram  Land,  Labor  produces 
Wealth.  To  call  in  the  aid  of  metaphor:  as  father  to 
mother  and  children  to  parents,  so  is  Labor  to  Land  and 
Wealth  to  both. 

Among  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  Wealth  is 


230         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

its  tendency  to  revert.  Not  only  does  it  consist  of  arti- 
ficial objects  produced  by  man  from  his  natural  environ- 
ment, but  with  use  or  lapse  of  time  it  loses  its  artificial 
quality  and  passes  back  again  into  the  great  reservoir 
of  matter  and  force  whence  it  came.  A  loaf  of  bread 
is  Wealth.  So  were  the  flour  of  which  it  was  made, 
the  wheat  from  which  the  flour  was  ground,  and  all 
the  artificial  implements  which  were  utilized  to  bring 
the  grain  to  fruition,  to  grind  the  flour,  to  bake  the 
bread,  and  to  transport  grain,  flour  and  implements 
in  the  form  of  a  loaf  of  bread  to  the  consumer.  In 
raising  the  grain,  agricultural  implements  were  sub- 
jected to  a  "wear  and  tear"  which  returned  them  in  de- 
gree to  the  natural  reservoirs  of  supply;  while  the  seed, 
produced  by  previous  effort,  was  wholly  returned.  In 
grinding  the  flour,  milling  implements  were  returned  in 
degree  by  their  "wear  and  tear" ;  and  so  with  baking 
implements  and  transporting  agencies.  At  last  the  bread 
itself  is  eaten  or  wasted.  In  either  case  it  also  returns 
to  the  natural  sources. 

What  is  thus  true  of  bread  and  its  artificial  constitu- 
ents is  true  of  all  other  artificial  objects.  Sooner  or  later, 
and  with  most  of  them  much  sooner  than  later,  all  arti- 
ficial objects  revert  to  their  original  economic  condition 
as  part  of  the  natural  environment  of  man. 

In  technical  phrase,  therefore,  not  only  is  all  Wealth 
produced  by  Labor  from  Land,  but  in  natural  course 
it  all  tends  to  pass  back  into  Land.  This  is  the  never 
varying  result  of  economic  processes. 

Serviceability. 

But  why  do  men  produce  by  Labor  from  Land  artificial 
objects,  or  Wealth,  if  those  objects  inevitably  go  back 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    231 

to  Land  again?  Simply,  as  we  have  already  casually 
observed,  because  the  consumption  of  those  objects, 
which  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  they  revert,  satisfies 
human  desire. 

Consuming  bread  satisfies  a  desire  for  food;  wearing 
out  clothing  satisfies  desires  for  covering  and  ornament; 
occupying  houses,  driving  horses  and  carriages,  carrying 
a  watch,  wearing  a  jewel,  and  so  on,  satisfy  other  desires. 
Men  systematically  produce  these  things  because  con- 
suming them  gives  satisfaction. 

It  is  not  because  the  labor  of  producing  them  is  itself 
a  pleasure.  On  the  contrary,  men  instinctively  shrink 
from  systematic  labor  for  its  own  sake.  Under  natural 
law — in  this  connection  a  law  of  human  nature — men 
instinctively  seek  the  satisfaction  of  their  desires  in  the 
easiest  way.  Their  object  is  to  get  the  most  and  the 
best  with  the  least  effort.  This  is  the  natural  law  that 
inflicts  upon  us  predatory  crime  when  it  is  perverted, 
but  blesses  us  with  labor-saving  invention  when  it  oper- 
ates normally. 

Translated  into  economic  terms,  that  law,  the  most 
fundamental  of  all  the  laws  of  political  economy,  would 
read:  "In  producing  Wealth  from  Land,  Labor  seeks  the 
easiest  way — ^the  line  of  least  resistance." 

Since  production  is  irksome  and  Labor  instinctively 
seeks  the  line  of  least  resistance,  the  things  it  produces 
must  either  have,  or  seem  to  have,  the  power  of  giving 
some  kind  of  satisfaction,  else  it  will  not  produce  them. 
That  is  to  say.  Wealth  must  possess  the  quality  of 
Serviceability.  It  must  be  capable  of  serving  some  pur- 
pose, of  ministering  to  some  desire,  whether  good  or 
bad,  doubtful  or  indifferent.  Wealth  adapted  to  serve 
normal  human  wants,  giving  no  one  pain  in  order  to 


232         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

give  others  pleasure,  may  be  distinguished  as  useful,  that 
is,  as  possessing  the  quahty  of  utility.  Bread  would  come 
in  this  category.  But  Wealth  adapted  to  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  pleasure  or  satisfaction  to  one  by  giving 
pain  or  causing  loss  to  another  (such  as  instruments  of 
torture),  is  lacking  in  the  quality  of  utility.  Neverthe- 
less it  may  be  accounted  as  serviceable,  in  the  restricted 
sense  of  the  term.    It  serves  to  satisfy  a  desire. 

Serviceability  as  a  quality  of  Wealth  is  exhibited  in 
two  general  aspects.  An  artificial  object  may  be  service- 
able either  in  satisfying  desire  directly,  or  as  a  tool  or 
material  in  aiding  to  produce  such  objects.  A  loaf  of 
bread  upon  the  table  satisfies  a  desire  directly ;  it  appeases 
hunger.  But  wheat,  flour,  agricultural  implements,  mills, 
cars,  wagons,  ovens,  warehouses,  etc.,  the  various  artifi- 
cial materials  and  artificial  implements  whereby  the  loaf 
of  bread  is  produced  to  the  table  of  the  consumer,  these  do 
not  satisfy  desire  directly.  They  are  artificial  means 
whereby  objects  that  do  satisfy  it  directly  may  be  realized. 

These  two  kinds  of  Serviceability  give  distinctive  char- 
acter to  the  articles  of  Wealth  to  which  they  respectively 
attach.  For  the  articles  of  Wealth  which  have  the  kind 
of  Serviceability  that  satisfies  desire  directly,  are  fin- 
ished; whereas  those  that  do  so  indirectly,  something 
being  yet  necessary  to  be  done  to  give  them  final  Service- 
ability, are  unfinished.  Bread  in  the  possession  of  the 
consumer  is  finished.  But  wheat,  flour,  ovens,  cars,  and 
the  other  materials  and  mechanism  for  making  bread  and 
delivering  it  to  the  consumer,  and  also  the  bread  in  the 
store,  are  in  the  other  category.  Something  remains  yet 
to  be  done  by  Labor  before  they  have  the  final  kind  of 
Serviceability.  To  the  degree,  therefore,  that  they  are 
used  in  or  are  devoted  to  satisfying  the  desire  for  bread, 
mediately,  they  are  unfinished  bread. 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    233 

With  reference  to  its  economic  Serviceability,  then, 
there  are  two  kinds  of  Wealth,  namely.  Finished  and  Un- 
finished. This  distinction  is  important,  as  we  shall  see 
when  we  get  back  to  Trade ;  for  in  Trade  it  is  unfinished 
wealth  that  constitutes  capital. 

Value. 

Value  as  well  as  Serviceability  attaches  to  Wealth. 
Since  artificial  objects,  or  Wealth,  have  Serviceability — 
are  capable,  that  is,  of  satisfying  desire — they  have  pos- 
sibilities of  Value.  But  they  do  not  for  that  reason  alone 
actually  exhibit  Value.  They  must  be  scarce  as  well  as 
serviceable. 

If  artificial  objects  could  be  produced  by  simple  fiat, 
they  would  have  as  much  Serviceability  as  if  produced 
laboriously;  but  they  would  have  no  Value,  because  they 
would  never  be  scarce.  But  why  wouldn't  they  be  scarce? 
Because  their  acquisition  in  abundance  by  everybody 
would  be  irksome  to  nobody.  Inasmuch,  then,  as  man  is 
not  endowed  with  magical  power ;  as  he  cannot  say,  "Let 
there  be  bread !"  and  there  is  bread ;  as,  on  the  contrary, 
every  artificial  object  is  produced  only  at  the  expense 
of  human  exertion,  often  severe,  and  always  irksome  if 
frequently  repeated — this  being  the  commonplace  fact, 
artificial  objects  are  always  scarce  except  as  irksome 
labor  modifies  their  scarcity. 

Their  possibilities  of  Value  are  realized  or  made  mani- 
fest through  scarcity;  but  nothing,  however  scarce,  can 
have  Value  unless  it  possesses  the  quality  of  Service- 
ability. It  may  have  no  utility,  and  still  have  Value.  It 
may  be  incapable,  that  is,  of  serving  any  useful  purpose, 
and  yet  be  valuable.  But  it  must  have  Serviceability  of 
some  kind.    It  must  be  capable  of  serving  some  purpose, 


234         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

or  it  will  be  valueless.  Value  cannot  rest  upon  nor  coex- 
ist with  non-Serviceability.  This  does  not  mean  that 
Serviceability  and  Value  are  the  same  thing.  They  are 
different  things.  Nor  does  it  mean  that  the  measure  of 
one  is  the  measure  of  the  other.  A  given  degree  of  Ser- 
viceability has  different  degrees  of  Value  according  to 
circumstances.  What  is  meant  is  that  Serviceability  is  the 
immediate  active  cause,  the  immediate  generating  force, 
of  Value;  that  no  object  can  under  any  circumstances 
have  any  Value  unless  it  is  or  seems  to  be  capable  of  serv- 
ing some  purpose. 

Scarcity  being  necessary  to  make  manifest  the  Value 
that  resides  potentially  in  Serviceability,  all  the  elements 
of  the  Value  of  Wealth  spring  from  Labor.  It  is  a  re- 
sultant of  two  Labor  forces — the  dynamic  of  productive 
power,  and  the  inertia  of  irksomeness.  Productive  power 
can  generate  Serviceability;  irksomeness  restrains  pro- 
ductive power;  the  equilibrium  is  indicated  by  Value. 
The  application  of  Labor  artificially  invests  objects  with 
Serviceability,  and  the  irksomeness  of  Labor  invests  their 
Serviceability  with  Value. 

Even  to  Robinson  Crusoe,  alone  upon  his  island,  this 
phenomenon  of  Value  was  present,  though  he  might  not 
have  recognized  it  by  name.  He  certainly  would  have 
valued  more  those  of  his  artificial  possessions  that  would 
have  cost  him  great  exertion  to  replace,  than  those  that 
would  have  cost  him  less.  The  point  is  admirably  made 
by  Henry  George.*  Referring  to  Crusoe,  he  writes  that 
the  essential  idea  of  Value  "would  be  brought  out  in 
Crusoe's  mind  by  any  question  of  getting  or  saving  one  of 
two  or  more  things.  Of  several  things  to  him  equally 
useful,  which  he  might  find  in  the  wreck  of  his  ship,  or 

*  "Science  of  Political  Economy,"  page  848. 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    23s 

on  the  shore  line  under  conditions  which  would  enable 
him  to  secure  but  one ;  or  of  several  equally  useful  to  him, 
which  were  threatened  by  a  deluge  of  rain  or  an  incursion 
of  savages,  it  is  evident  that  he  would  'set  the  most  store' 
by  that  which  would  represent  to  him  the  greatest  effort 
to  replace.  Thus,  in  a  tropical  island  his  valuation  of  a 
quantity  of  flour,  which  he  could  replace  only  by  culti- 
vating, gathering  and  pounding  the  grain,  would  be 
much  greater  than  of  an  equal  quantity  of  bananas,  which 
he  might  replace  at  the  cost  of  plucking  and  carrying 
them ;  but  on  a  more  northern  island  this  estimate  of  rela- 
tive value  might  be  reversed.  And  so  all  things  which  to 
get  or  retain  would  require  of  him  toil,  would  come  to 
assume  in  his  mind  a  relation  of  value  distinct  from  and 
independent  of  their  usefulness,  a  relation  based  on  the 
greater  or  less  degree  of  exertion  that  their  possession 
would  enable  him  to  avoid  in  the  gratification  of  his  de- 
sires. ...  In  the  last  analysis,  value  is  but  an  expres- 
sion of  exertion  avoided." 

The  last  sentence  of  that  quotation  furnishes  probably 
the  most  exact  explanation  of  Value  to  be  found  anywhere 
in  the  books:  "an  expression  of  exertion  avoided" — an 
expression,  that  is,  of  Labor  saved.  It  throws  a  bright 
light  upon  the  whole  subject  of  economic  Value,  whether 
of  artificial  or  other  objects,  making  it  perfectly  clear 
why  some  things  are  more  valuable  than  others,  and  why 
the  degrees  of  difference  are  so  numerous  and  extreme. 
It  is  not  the  Labor  saved-up  or  stored  in  a  serviceable  ob- 
ject, but  the  Labor  to  be  saved  or  avoided  by  possession 
of  the  serviceable  object,  that  gives  it  Value ;  and  degrees 
of  Value  are  regulated  by  the  degrees  of  Labor  to  be 
saved  by  possession  of  the  objects,  respectively,  to  which 
Value  attaches. 


236         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Primarily,  the  objects  to  which  Value  attaches  are  arti- 
ficial— ^those  objects  distinguished  as  Wealth.  This  is 
because  such  objects  are  primarily  non-existent.  They 
come  into  being  only  through  Labor,  which  must  be  ex- 
erted to  modify  the  natural  scarcity ;  and  since  that  exer- 
tion is  irksome,  its  results  are  valuable  in  the  degree  that 
they  will  serve  to  save  the  possessor  further  exertion. 

But  secondarily,  Value  attaches  also  to  natural  objects 
— those  distinguished  as  Land.  It  does  so  only  second- 
arily, because  primarily  Land  is  not  non-existent.  On  the 
contrary,  primarily  it  is  superabundant.  But  when  some 
parts  of  it  yield  easier  returns  to  Labor  than  other  parts, 
those  parts  are  capable  relatively  of  saving  Labor  in  the 
production  of  Wealth.  Consequently,  if  such  Land  is 
made  scarce  by  monopolization  it  becomes  valuable;  and 
the  degree  of  its  value  is  in  accordance  with  the  degree 
of  Labor  it  is  capable  of  saving  its  possessor. 

Trade. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  Value,  nothing  but  a  pecu- 
liarity of  Labor  not  yet  considered,  is  necessary  to  cause 
Trade.  This  peculiarity  is  best  known  as  Division  of 
Labor,  though  the  better  term  is  Cooperation.  It  results 
from  the  law  of  human  nature  already  mentioned,  that 
men  try  to  satisfy  their  desires  in  the  easiest  known  way. 

Evidently  a  larger  general  result,  a  greater  volume  of 
Wealth,  can  be  produced  with  less  Labor  if  some  men 
work  regularly  at  one  or  some  parts  of  one  thing,  and 
others  at  other  things  or  some  of  their  parts,  than  if  each 
man  works  at  everything.  If,  for  instance,  armies  of 
workmen  devote  their  time  and  energies  to  preparing 
leather,  separate  groups  doing  over  and  over  some  partic- 
ular act  in  the  process  from  raising  the  cattle  to  tan- 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    237 

ning  hides;  if  other  armies,  also  divided  into  specialized 
groups,  turn  the  leather  into  shoes;  if  still  others  do  the 
transporting  and  others  the  storekeeping,  while  others 
divide  up  into  groups  to  make  and  maintain  the  ma- 
chinery, and  so  on,  more  and  better  shoes  will  be  made  and 
brought  to  consumers  than  if  each  of  these  men  were  to 
devote  the  same  energy  to  all  the  processes  of  making  and 
delivering  shoes.  This  is  true  of  all  artificial  objects.  It 
is,  therefore,  economical  to  make  and  deliver  Wealth  by 
the  process  which  should  be  known  as  Cooperation,  but 
is  known  as  Division  of  Labor. 

This  process  may  be  observed  in  two  aspects.  Some- 
times men  literally  divide  their  efforts,  to  produce  results 
which  would  otherwise  waste  time  and  energy.  Thus, 
two  men  having  two  errands  each  to  do,  two  to  the  east- 
ward a  mile  and  two  to  the  westward  a  mile,  will  do 
them  more  easily  and  quickly  if  one  attends  to  both  in  one 
direction  and  the  other  to  both  in  the  opposite  direction, 
than  if  each  does  one  errand  in  each  direction.  By  di- 
viding their  efforts,  they  economize  time  and  energy. 
The  other  aspect  of  Division  of  Labor  is  exhibited  when 
men  join  their  efforts  to  produce  results  which  none  of 
them  could  accomplish  alone.  Thus  our  two  men  could 
build  two  houses,  each  of  which  would  be  better  than 
either  man  could  build  alone.  So  Division  of  Labor 
means  not  only  division,  but  also  union,  of  labor ;  which  is 
in  itself  a  good  reason  for  preferring  the  term  Coopera- 
tion. 

Now  the  things  so  done  would,  as  we  have  seen,  have 
Serviceability.  Otherwise,  they  would  not  be  done — cer- 
tainly not  systematically  or  regularly,  which  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  political  economy.  These  two  houses,  for  exam- 
ple, would  serve  to  live  in ;  and  if  bread  were  the  object  of 


tt38         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

two  of  those  errands  and  meat  of  the  other  two,  the  meat 
and  bread  would  serve  for  food. 

Having  Serviceability,  under  circumstances  which 
would  enable  their  possession  to  save  necessary  Labor  in 
order  to  satisfy  desire  (which  implies  Scarcity),  they 
would  also  have  Value.  The  Value  of  the  houses  would 
be  greater  than  that  of  the  lumber,  etc.,  which  would  be 
greater  than  that  of  the  timber,  etc.,  because  each  in  its 
order  would  be  a  labor-saver.  So  of  the  bread  and  meat. 
After  being  brought  to  the  central  point — where  they 
were  desired,  else  the  errands  would  not  have  been  done — 
they  would  have  more  Value  than  before  the  errands, 
because  they  would  save  the  Labor  of  bringing  that  much 
bread  and  meat  to  that  point  to  satisfy  the  desire  which 
caused  the  errands  to  be  undertaken. 

We  how  have  a  grasp  of  the  conditions  of  Trade. 

To  recur  for  illustration  to  the  examples :  When  those 
houses  are  finished,  their  possession  will  save  equal  Labor, 
Consequently  they  have  equal  Value,  and  the  two  men 
will  exchange  their  respective  undivided  interests  equally. 
Each  will  swap  his  undivided  interest  in  the  house  he 
g^ves,  for  the  other's  undivided  interest  in  the  house  he 
gets.  So  each  comes  to  own,  as  the  result  of  his  own 
labor,  a  whole  house,  which  neither  is  capable  of  building 
by  himself. 

Likewise  with  the  errands.  When  they  are  done,  the 
two  men  have  at  the  central  point,  where  they  are  wanted, 
two  loaves  of  bread  fetched  a  mile  in  one  direction, 
and  two  pieces  of  meat  fetched  a  mile  in  another.  As 
the  possession  of  either  loaf  will  save  further  Labor  in 
equal  degree,  they  have  equal  Value.  Similarly  of  the 
pieces  of  meat.  But  how  much  Labor  would  each  loaf  of 
bread  save  over  and  above  its  cost  at  the  mile-away  bak- 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    239 

ery  ?  Obviously  not  more  than  a  two-mile  walk.  Precisely 
so  with  the  pieces  of  meat.  Consequently,  as  a  rule,  no 
one  would  give  more  for  either  than  the  equivalent  of  a 
two-mile  walk.  Therefore,  the  man  who  fetched  the  bread 
would  trade  even,  his  extra  loaf  for  the  other's  extra 
piece  of  meat,  and  vice  versa,  provided  each  had  cost  the 
same  at  the  point  from  which  it  was  carried.  If  either 
had  cost  more  at  that  point,  the  men  would  adjust  this 
difference  and  then  trade  even. 

Now,  it  is  the  same  in  principle  whether  two  men  do 
each  other's  errands  and  swap  the  results,  thus  securing 
bread  and  meat  with  economy  of  Labor ;  or  whether  two 
men  help  build  each  other's  houses  and  swap  their  Labor 
interests  therein,  thus  securing  better  houses  than  either 
can  build  by  himself ;  or  whether  millions  upon  millions  of 
men  help  get  one  another's  bread  and  meat,  help  build  one 
another's  houses,  help  make  one  another's  clothes,  help 
furnish  one  another's  luxuries — in  a  word,  contribute  to 
the  making  and  delivery  of  every  variety  of  artificial 
objects,  by  cooperatively  dividing  and  uniting  Labor, 
and  then  swap  their  respective  interests.  The  principle 
is  identical. 

It  is  by  means  of  this  Division  of  Labor  that  the  social 
body  economizes  Labor  in  the  production  of  Wealth,  and 
by  means  of  this  swapping  that  the  Wealth  which  Labor 
draws  forth  is  distributed.  The  whole  process  of  making 
and  swapping  is  Cooperation,  or  Division  of  Labor  and 
Trade.  Whoever  gets  any  species  of  Wealth  in  free 
exchange  for  his  Labor  has  in  effect  produced  the  thing 
he  gets.  It  is  the  same  in  principle  as  if  he  had  made  it 
himself;  for,  exchanges  being  voluntary  and  in  free 
conditions,  what  one  gives  is  as  a  rule  the  equivalent  in 
Value  of  what  he  gets. 


240        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  in  our  day  the  individual 
cannot  rightfully  own  any  kind  of  Wealth  because  no  in- 
dividual now  completely  produces  any  kind.  When  the 
Value  of  what  he  contributes  in  Trade  to  the  volume  of 
Wealth  in  one  form  is  equivalent  to  the  Value  of  what  he 
draws  in  Trade  from  the  volume  of  Wealth  in  another 
form,  it  cannot  be  fairly  said  that  he  has  no  moral  or  eco- 
nomic title  to  what  he  draws  out. 

As  we  have  already  found,  there  are  two  kinds  of 
Serviceability — ^mediate  and  final,  a  flouring  mill  being 
typical  of  the  one  and  a  loaf  of  bread  in  the  larder  of  the 
other.  We  have  distinguished  these  as  Finished  Wealth 
and  Unfinished  Wealth.  It  is  only  in  conditions  of  Trade 
that  this  difference  becomes  important.  For  it  is  only 
in  those  conditions  that  these  two  different  kinds  of 
Wealth  fall  into  different  ownerships. 

In  Trade,  however.  Unfinished  Wealth,  that  is  Wealth 
having  distinctively  mediate  or  indirect  Serviceability  as 
distinguished  from  final,  the  Serviceability  of  the  mill  in 
contradistinction  to  that  of  the  loaf  of  bread,  becomes 
a  distinctive  class  of  property  and  is  therefore  subject 
to  different  ownerships.  Whereas  Robinson  Crusoe, 
of  Selkirk's  firm  island  in  the  sea,  was  only  one  indi- 
vidual and  owned  'in  common,"  so  to  speak,  all  his 
Wealth,  unfinished  as  well  as  finished,  tools  as  well  as 
final  satisfactions,  the  Robinson  Crusoe  of  Galileo's  float- 
ing island  in  space,  is  composed  of  millions  of  individ- 
uals, some  of  whom  own  one  kind  of  unfinished  Wealth, 
some  other  kinds,  and  some  others  still,  and  all  own,  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  at  least  now  and  then,  a  supply  of 
finished  Wealth.  When  Unfinished  Wealth  is  thus  differ- 
entiated by  Trade  into  a  distinctive  class  of  property  it 
is  known  as  capital  Wealth — for  short,  Capital. 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    241 

Other  things  are  often  called  Capital.  But  it  is  tech- 
nically wrong  and  logically  misleading  to  call  them  by 
that  name  if  we  give  the  name  to  Unfinished  Wealth. 
Money,  for  instance,  is  not  Capital.  The  fact  that  it  will 
trade  for  Capital  does  not  make  it  such,  any  more  than 
the  fact  that  a  new  pair  of  shoes  will  trade  for  a  five- 
dollar  greenback  makes  them  money.  Though  money 
may  represent  Capital  it  is  itself  something  else.  Neither 
is  a  building  site  Capital,  nor  a  mineral  deposit,  nor  any 
other  natural  object.  Natural  objects  are  distinguished 
as  Land.  In  a  slave  country  slaves  might  be  called 
Capital,  but  they  are  not  Capital.  Slaves  are  working- 
men.  They  are  therefore  distinguished  as  Labor.  Cap- 
ital is  the  distinctive  term  for  that  form  of  Wealth  (which 
means  artificial  objects  adapted  to  satisfy  human  desires) 
that  has  mediate  or  indirect  as  distinguished  from  final 
Serviceability.  It  is  Wealth  which  is  not  yet  in  the  hands 
of  the  consumer — Wealth  which  is,  therefore,  in  the  eco- 
nomic sense,  unfinished. 

Out  of  this  segregation  of  Capital  Wealth  from  Final 
Wealth,  arise  all  problems  with  reference  to  interest,  or 
the  so-called  earnings  of  Capital.  These  problems  are 
too  much  involved  in  confusions  of  Capital  with  things 
that  are  not  Capital,  to  admit  of  examination  in  this  gen- 
eral survey  of  first  principles.  It  will  be  enough  here  to 
say  that  inasmuch  as  Capital  is  a  class  of  Wealth,  and  all 
classes  of  Wealth  are  produced  by  Labor,  the  earnings  of 
Capital,  if  such  there  be,  must  be  earnings  of  Labor. 
They  therefore  belong,  in  fairness,  to  whoever  has  either 
made  the  earning-Capital  with  his  own  Labor  or  acquired 
the  ownership  of  it  in  free  exchange,  Value  for  Value, 
for  what  he  has  made  with  his  own  labor.  Interest  on 
Capital  is  but  a  form  of  Wages  for  Labor. 


*i4a        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

This  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  the  earnings  of 
Labor  in  conditions  of  Trade,  for  which  Wages  is  the 
technical  term.  But  as  "wages"  means  colloquially  only 
the  hire  of  certain  classes  of  subordinate  workmen, 
another  caution  is  necessary.  Since  Labor  comprehends 
all  human  effort,  whether  of  brain  or  muscle,  in  produc- 
ing satisfactions  for  human  desires,  and  not  merely  hired 
labor,  so  the  compensation  for  Labor  comprehends  more 
than  the  pay  of  hired  laborers.  That  proportion  of  the 
whole  volume  of  Wealth  that  flows  to  Labor  as  its  share 
is  what  is  meant  by  the  technical  term  Wages. 

If  Labor  were  the  only  factor  in  the  production  of 
Wealth,  that  is,  if  human  exertion  could  create  artificial 
objects  out  of  nothing,  needing  neither  raw  materials  nor 
standing  room  nor  natural  environment  of  any  kind,  then 
all  the  Wealth  created  would  go  to  laborers  as  Wages  in 
return  for  their  expenditure  of  effort  in  producing  it.  In 
other  words,  Wealth  and  Wages  would  then  coincide. 
The  non-laborer  could  take  nothing  except  by  theft  or  as 
a  voluntary  gift  from  his  toiling  brethren. 

But  Labor  cannot  create  Wealth.  It  can  only  produce 
or  draw  forth  Wealth  from  external  nature — from  Land. 
It  must  go  to  Land  alike  for  materials  and  implements 
and  final  product — for  capital  Wealth,  as  well  as  final 
Wealth, — and  to  Land  also  for  a  working  place. 

Yet,  so  long  as  there  is  no  scarcity  of  the  best  quality  of 
requisite  Land,  it  is  the  same  with  reference  to  compensa- 
tion as  if  no  Land  were  needed.  For  one  place  being  as 
good  as  another,  and  every  place  offering  opportunity  in 
excess  of  the  need,  there  would  be  no  premiums  for  place, 
and  the  entire  product  would  go  to  Labor  as  Wages. 
Wealth  and  Wages  would  still  coincide. 

But  with  the  monopolization  and  consequent  scarcity  of 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    243 

superior  places,  there  enters  the  possibility  of  diverting 
some  proportion  of  Wealth,  or  premiums  for  place,  to 
another  category  than  Wages.  This  proportion  is  classi- 
fied apart  from  the  rest  because  it  represents  an  economic 
diflference — a  saving  of  Labor  which  the  better  but  scarce 
sites  offer  over  the  abundant  but  poorer  ones.  The  term 
for  that  class  or  category  is  Rent,  which  means,  of 
course,  not  merely  what  tenants  pay  to  landlords  for  real 
estate,  but  comprehensively  what  can  be  exacted  for 
Land  as  distinguished  from  real  estate — what  can  be 
exacted  for  superior  places.  It  is  in  this  manner 
that  Land  acquires  Value,  the  Rent  of  Land  and 
the  Value  of  Land  being  only  different  manifestations 
of  the  same  economic  fact.  Land  Value  is  simply  the 
capitalization  of  Land  Rent. 

Rent  attaches  to  Land  as  Wages  attach  to  Labor.  Con- 
sequently, the  laborer  on  a  specially  desirable  and  scarce 
site  may  differentiate  his  Rent  from  his  Wages  by  trans- 
ferring his  Land,  or  he  may  have  it  differentiated 
against  his  will  by  expropriation. 

When  this  differentiation  is  made  we  have  that  most 
fundamental  phenomenon  of  Trade,  the  distribution  of 
artificial  objects  or  Wealth  in  two  categories:  Wages, 
which  is  all  the  Wealth  that  remains  after  what  is  due  to 
the  advantages  of  exceptional  and  scarce  places  has  been 
deducted;  and  Rent,  which  is  the  proportion  of  Wealth 
that  is  due  to  the  advantages  of  those  places.  This  pri- 
mary division  is  regulated  by  competition  for  Land. 

A  secondary  division,  also  regulated  by  competition, 
divides  Rent  among  land  owners  in  proportion  to  the 
value  of  their  land  holdings,  respectively,  and  the  Wages 
fund  among  workers  in  proportion  to  the  value  of  theif 
services  respectively. 


444        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

As  Labor  becomes  more  and  more  productive  of 
Wealth,  exceptionally  desirable  Land  becomes  relatively 
more  and  more  scarce ;  consequently  the  Rent  fund  tends 
to  increase  side  by  side  with  the  Wages  fund.  This  makes 
it  highly  desirable  to  own  such  Land.  For  one  may  thus 
satisfy  his  wants  with  least  exertion,  or  with  no  exertion 
at  all ;  a  patent  fact  which  generates  a  tendency  to  monop- 
olize Land  in  advance  of  general  need  for  it,  with  the 
expectation  or  hope  that  it  may  come  to  command  excep- 
tional advantages  for  Labor — that  a  city  may  spring  up 
near  it  or  on  it,  or  a  mine  be  discovered  under  its  surface, 
or  a  farming  population  grow  thick  in  the  region.  But 
this  tendency  has  the  effect  of  abnormally  lessening  the 
general  market  supply  of  Land,  and  thereby,  so  to  speak, 
of  inflating  or  "watering"  Rent. 

Now,  Rent  proper  represents  a  normal  advantage.  It 
does  not  press  upon  the  Wages  fund,  but  equalizes  Wages 
up  to  the  standard  of  Labor  done  without  peculiar  ad- 
vantages of  place.  Laborers  thereby  get  equal  returns  for 
equal  work,  regardless  of  location. 

But  the  "water"  in  Rent  does  make  a  pressure  upon 
Wages.  It  can  be  traded  for  Wealth  only  at  the  expense 
of  the  Wages  fund.  This  is  the  condition  when  most  of 
the  Land  having  superior  Serviceability  is  monopolized. 
Rent,  expanded  by  "water,"  presses  more  and  more  upon 
the  Wages  fund  until  that  fund  is  so  compressed  that 
Labor  refuses  to  continue  production  for  the  abnormally 
reduced  compensation.  Then  the  "water"  bag  collapses. 
When  this  happens  we  call  it  industrial  depression;  and 
we  call  the  readjusting  process  "hard  times." 

Taxation  may  play  an  effective  part  in  the  economic 
pressure  of  "watered"  Rent  upon  Wages.  If  trading 
transactions  are  taxed,  the  Wages  fund  will  be  dimin- 


AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    245 

ished,  and  Labor  thereby  weakened  so  as  to  be  able  all 

the  less  to  resist  the  pressure  of  "watered"  Rent — the 
political  moral  of  which  would  seem  to  be  that  trading 
ought  to  be  exempt  from  taxation.  If  the  owning  of 
Land  having  Value  (which  is  the  equivalent  of  rent- 
yielding  power)  is  taxed,  the  Rent  fund  will  be  dimin- 
ished, thereby  weakening  the  force  of  its  pressure  upon 
Wages — the  political  moral  of  which  would  seem  to  be 
that  such  Land-owning  ought  to  be  taxed. 

Either  Trade  or  Land  monopoly  may  be  obstructed  by 
taxation  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  the  amount  of  the 
tax.  This  may  happen  if  trading  is  so  heavily  taxed  that 
it  is  checked,  or  land  monopolizing  so  heavily  taxed  as  to 
be  discouraged.  In  comparing  these  differing  effects  of 
taxation  it  might  be  wise  to  observe  that  trading  serves 
mankind  best  when  it  is  not  obstructed,  and  that  land 
monopoly  does  not  serve  mankind  at  all. 

As  Labor  can  use  Land  effectively  without  owning  it 
or  hiring  it,  doubtless  the  ideal  adjustment  of  land  tenure 
would  be  one  under  which  men  would  refuse  to  take 
title  save  for  occupancy  and  use.  This  can  be  best  se- 
cured by  taxing  Rent  into  the  common  purse,  which,  by 
removing  temptations  to  forestall  Land,  would  at  once  let 
out  the  "water" — and  keep  it  out.  There  would  thus  be 
left  no  other  motive  for  seeking  title  than  desire  to  use. 

It  would  be  ideal  also  in  this,  that  it  would  leave  to 
Labor  in  the  Wages  fund  for  competitive  distribution, 
the  earnings  of  individual  effort,  while  taking  for  Labor 
in  the  Rent  fund,  for  pubUc  or  common  use,  the  undis- 
tributable  earnings  of  social  effort  as  an  indivisible  whole. 
Wealth  would  then  coincide  with  the  sum  of  two  kinds 
of  earnings — Wages,  or  the  distributable  mass  of  indi- 
vidual earnings ;  and  Rent,  or  the  undistributable  mass  of 


246         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

social  earnings.    The  nearer  this  distribution  is  realized, 
the  nearer  do  we  approach  the  economic  ideal. 

Money. 

Coming  now  back  again  to  the  surface  where  our  ex- 
ploration began,  we  are  again  confronted  with  the  phe- 
nomenon of  Money. 

In  the  concrete,  Money  is  a  token  of  Trade.  For  a 
metal  disc  called  a  cent  we  get  a  stick  of  candy,  and  the 
storekeeper  passes  the  disc  on  to  others  in  exchange  for 
whatever  he  wants — maybe  two  sticks  of  candy,  to  be 
sold  again  at  a  profit.  We  may  do  the  same  thing  in 
larger  transactions  with  a  silver  dime,  or  quarter,  or  half, 
or  dollar,  or  with  gold  coins  or  paper  money.  All  these 
are  tokens  of  trade,  which  close  transactions  and  leave  no 
obligation  of  debt  behind. 

But  comparatively  little  of  the  world's  trading  is  done 
by  the  actual  passing  of  such  tokens.  Checks  and  drafts, 
which  are  orders  upon  bookkeepers  directing  them  to 
shift  credits  upon  their  ledgers,  are  used  for  the  most 
part.  Yet  money  terms  are  retained,  checks  and  drafts 
being  drawn  and  all  commercial  books  being  kept  in  the 
language  of  Money. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Trade  that  the  terminology 
of  Serviceability,  as  pounds  and  ounces,  or  feet  and 
inches,  or  quarts  and  pints,  is  translated  into  the  termi- 
nology of  Value,  as  francs  and  centimes,  or  pounds,  shill- 
ings and  pence,  or  marks  and  pfennigs,  or  dollars  and 
cents.  Consequently,  confusion  of  thought  often  arises. 
It  is  said,  for  instance,  that  some  man  is  worth  a  million 
dollars,  and  the  imagination  pictures  him  as  possessing 
that  much  Money.  But  he  has  nothing  like  it.  What  is 
really  meant  is  that  he  has  property  the  Value  of  which 
is  equal  to  a  million  dollars  of  Money. 


OK   i 


3QA?1T     I 


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DIAGRAM  OF  AN  ECONOMIC  EXP 


SURFACE    LINE    OF    ECONO^lIC 


A  TRADt  TOKEN 


EXCHANGE    OF 
VALUABLE  THINGS 


V 


SERVICEABILITY 
IN    SCARCITY 


"V 


CAPABILITY  OF 
SERVING  HUMAN  PE5IRE 


<- 


ARTIFICIAL  OBJECTS 

EMBODYING 

SERVICEABILITY 


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MONEY 


TRADE 


VALUE 


SERVICEABILITY 


WEALTH 


INITIAL   FORCE   OF  ALL 
ECONOMIC    PROCESSES 


PI 


ORATION  AND  SURREY 


PROCESSES 


CONFUSIONS  OF 
MONEY    TERMS 


/N 


DIVISION  OF  LABOR 
OR  COOPERATION 


■^iULTANT  0F-< 


1.  RENT  OF  LAND 
2. WAGES  OF  LABOR 


INTEREST 


1.  PRODUCTIVENESS  OF  LABOR 


2.IRK50MENE5b    OF  LABOR 


-> 


THE  ECONOMIC 
CHARACTERISTIC 
OF  WEALTH 


—>< 


1.  FINAU 


2.  MEDIATE 


u 


PRODUCT 


->< 


1.  FINISHED 


2.  UNFINISHED 


f(  0R5 


5 


LAND 


PASSIVE  CONDITION  OF  ALL 
ECONOMIC      PROCESSES. 


L 


mu 


j 


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AN  ECONOMIC  EXPLORATION    247 

This  use  of  money  terms  for  measuring  property  is  a 
prolific  cause  of  crooked  thinking  regarding  economic 
relationships.  It  confuses  just  and  unjust  property  in  a 
bewildering  muddle.  When  we  say  that  two  men  are 
each  worth  ten  thousand  dollars,  we  think  of  their  prop- 
erty rights  as  identical.  Yet  the  property  rights  of  the 
one  might  be  utterly  indefensible,  while  those  of  the 
other  might  be  wholly  unobjectionable.  Could  we  exam- 
ine their  inventories  we  might  find  that  the  one  owns 
thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  slaves  (who  are  in  justice 
entitled  to  own  themselves)  ;  thousands  of  dollars'  worth 
of  private  taxing  power  (which  is  a  privilege  of  extor- 
tion) ;  and  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  land  (which  is 
a  common  inheritance)  ;  while  the  entire  fortune  of  the 
other  might  consist  of  buildings,  machinery  and  the  like 
(which  are  justly  his  if  he  has  made  them  himself  or  has 
swapped  his  labor  for  them,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  their 
makers).  These  fundamental  moral  and  economic  dis- 
tinctions are  covered  up  by  the  use  of  money  terms  for 
indiscriminately  measuring   Serviceability  in   Trade. 

For  that  reason  it  is  necessary  to  examine,  as  we  have 
done,  into  the  nature  of  Trade,  where  the  language  of 
Money  prevails ;  to  probe  Value,  which  makes  Trade  pos- 
sible; to  consider  Serviceability,  from  which  Value  pro- 
ceeds ;  and  to  analyze  Wealth,  which  embodies  Service- 
ability. Having  done  that,  we  find  that  Wealth,  from 
which  spring  all  these  phenomena — Serviceability,  Value, 
Trade  and  Money — is  the  product  of  Labor  applied  to 
Land.  A  diagram  of  the  route  and  ramifications  of  this 
economic  exploration  and  survey  is  given  in  connection 
with  this  chapter  for  the  purpose  of  refreshing  the  mem- 
ory and  aiding  the  understanding  of  the  reader. 


248         ETHICS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Property  Rights. 

We  are  able  now  clearly  to  see  that  the  justice  of  any 
property  right,  though  its  Value  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
Money  regardless  of  its  economic  character,  depends  at 
last  upon  its  relations  to  Labor  and  Land.  These  things 
lie  back  of  all  kinds  of  "vested  rights." 

And  they  determine  infallibly  whether  any  of  those 
rights  are  just  or  unjust.  For  there  are  two  ways,  and, 
broadly  speaking,  only  two,  whereby  man  enslaves  his 
fellow  man.  He  may  do  so  by  acquiring  "vested  rights" 
in  Labor,  which  enable  him  to  compel  workingmen  to 
work  for  him.  This  is  called  chattel  slavery.  Or  he  may 
do  so  by  acquiring  "vested  rights"  in  Land,  which  enable 
him  to  deny  life  to  workingmen  unless  they  work  for 
him.  This  is  called  land  monopoly.  In  the  one  case  the 
slavery  is  active;  in  the  other  it  is  passive. 

In  either  there  may  be  great  varieties  of  form.  Own- 
ership of  Labor  does  not  consist  alone  in  title  deeds  to 
slaves.  Any  taxing  power  for  private  profit  is  of  the 
same  nature.  It  compels  men  to  give  up  part  of  their 
earnings  for  nothing.  Neither  does  ownership  of  Land 
consist  alone  in  the  title  deeds  to  particular  parcels  of 
earth  laid  off  by  metes  and  bounds.  All  public  fran- 
chises, as  street  car  privileges,  railroad  rights  of  way, 
dock  privileges,  and  the  like,  are  in  their  nature  the  same. 
The  essence  of  slavery,  active  or  passive,  is  in  every  one 
of  them. 

"Slavery,"  someone  has  said,  "is  the  sum  of  all  sin." 
He  only  put  into  other  phrase  the  sentiment  of  Paul: 
"The  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil."  To  love 
money,  and  not  the  earning  of  it,  is  to  love  slavery.  And 
that  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  economic  problems 
and  of  all  civic  morality. 


CHAPTER   VII 

SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

FEW  things  in  human  history  are  more  obvious  than 
the  effect  upon  social  institutions  in  general  of 
changes  in  economic  conditions.  Restricted  economic  sys- 
tems have  always  been  prejudicial  to  the  business,  the 
politics,  the  art,  the  morals  and  even  the  religions  of  the 
societies  that  have  tolerated  them ;  while  advances  in  eco- 
nomic freedom  have  everywhere  been  followed  by  im- 
provement in  all  other  spheres  of  social  aspiration  and 
effort. 

This  obvious  historical  truth  could  hardly  be  more 
impressively  portrayed  than  in  these  eloquent  words: 

"Only  in  broken  gleams  and  partial  light  has  the  sun 
of  Liberty  yet  beamed  among  men,  but  all  progress  hath 
she  called  forth.  Liberty  came  to  a  race  of  slaves  crouch- 
ing under  Egyptian  whips,  and  led  them  forth  from  the 
House  of  Bondage,  She  hardened  them  in  the  desert 
and  made  of  them  a  race  of  conquerors.  The  free  spirit 
of  the  Mosaic  law  took  their  thinkers  up  to  heights  where 
they  beheld  the  unity  of  God,  and  inspired  their  poets 
with  strains  that  yet  phrase  the  highest  exaltations  of 
thought.  Liberty  dawned  on  the  Phoenician  coast,  and 
ships  passed  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  plow  the  un- 
known sea.  She  shed  a  partial  light  on  Greece,  and 
marble  grew  to  shapes  of  ideal  beauty,  words  became  the 
instruments  of  subtlest  thought,  and  against  the  scanty 
militia  of  free  cities  the  countless  hosts  of  the  Great  King 
broke  like  surges  against  a  rock.    She  cast  her  beams  pn 

249 


2SO        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

the  four-acre  farms  of  Italian  husbandmen,  and  born  of 
her  strength  a  power  came  forth  that  conquered  the  world. 
They  glinted  from  shields  of  German  warriors,  and 
Augustus  wept  his  legions.  Out  of  the  night  that  fol- 
lowed her  eclipse,  her  slanting  rays  fell  again  on  free 
cities,  and  a  lost  learning  revived,  modern  civiHzation 
began,  a  new  world  was  unveiled;  and  as  Liberty  grew, 
so  grew  art,  wealth,  power,  knowledge,  and  refinement. 
In  the  history  of  every  nation  we  may  read  the  same 
truth."* 

So  manifest  is  this  order  of  social  phenomena  whereby 
social  improvement  follows  advances  in  economic  free- 
dom, and  not  only  with  reference  to  past  times  but  also 
in  our  own  day,  that  social  progress  seems  to  be  gene- 
rated by  economic  modes ;  and  from  that  inference  mate- 
rialistic evolutionists  draw  far-reaching  conclusions.  Eco- 
nomics becomes  to  them  a  sort  of  social  protoplasm,  out 
of  which  the  higher  institutions  and  even  the  ideals  of 
society  are  progressively  evolved. 

The  plausibility  of  this  theory  is  greatly  enhanced  by 
the  undeniable  fact  that  institutions  of  higher  degree  are 
affected  in  character  and  direction  by  existing  economic 
conditions.  The  economic  struggle  taints  our  politics 
with  corruption,  rests  our  morals  on  the  shifting  sands  of 
utilitarianism,  degrades  our  art  to  the  commonplace  or 
the  sensational,  and  turns  the  high  ideals  of  our  religion 
into  empty  metaphors  behind  which  lurks  a  loathsome 
dollar  worship. 

All  this  is  because  existing  economic  conditions  force 
everybody  into  an  all-absorbing  devotion  to  the  problem 
of  securing  a  living.  The  higher  qualities  of  human 
nature  have  consequently  but  little  opportunity  to  develop 

*  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  Book  X,  Ch.  V. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  251 

freely.  It  by  no  means  follows,  however,  that  economic 
systems  naturally  determine  the  character  and  direction  of 
those  qualities.  Nothing  more  is  proved  than  that  eco- 
nomic systems  which  force  men  to  become  absorbed  in 
the  problem  of  securing  a  living,  hold  the  higher  qualities 
of  human  nature  down  to  their  own  low  levels. 

We  may  still  infer,  then,  when  changes  in  economic 
systems  are  followed  by  improvement  on  the  higher  planes 
of  social  life,  that  this  result  is  due  to  another  cause  than 
materialistic  evolution.  So  far  from  being  limited  to  the 
theory  that  improved  conditions  on  the  higher  planes  are 
generated  by  economic  change,  we  may  fairly  conclude 
that  those  conditions  are  attributable  to  the  fact  that 
the  economic  change  has  freed  the  higher  qualities  of 
men  from  the  thraldom  of  bread  winning.  Instead  of 
affording  proof  of  materialistic  evolution,  such  changes 
are  instances  of  spiritual  emancipation. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  men  must  eat  and  drink  and 
be  clad  before  they  can  think  effectively  about  art  or 
morals,  politics  or  religion,  or  in  any  other  manner 
give  free  play  to  their  higher  faculties.  They  must, 
moreover,  not  only  have  all  the  bodily  comforts  that  food 
and  drink  and  clothing  symbolize,  but  must  also  be  rea- 
sonably assured  of  always  having  them,  before  their 
thoughts  can  soar  very  far  above  economic  levels. 

So  long  as  economic  necessities  are  forced  into  the 
foreground,  higher  impulses  will  be  driven  into  the  back- 
ground. While  the  mind  is  worried  with  economic 
thoughts,  moral  and  spiritual  thoughts  will  be  clouded. 
Any  economic  system,  therefore,  which  perpetually  stim- 
ulates a  universal  and  obtrusive  fear  of  want,  must  give 
direction  and  character  to  every  other  social  institution. 
It  does  this,  however,  not  by  processes  of  generation  or 


252        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

materialistic  evolution,  but  by  holding  the  higher  func- 
tions of  the  mind  in  check. 

Emancipate  the  higher  human  qualities  by  banishing 
want  and  fear  of  want,  and  social  development  will  no 
longer  be  determined  by  economic  adjustments.  The 
higher  human  faculties,  freed  from  the  enthrallment  of 
bodily  needs,  will  rise  toward  their  source — which  is  not 
material,  but  spiritual. 

The  theory  that  all  social  movement  is  generated  and 
determined  by  economic  adjustments,  assumes  that  an 
effect  can  be  greater  than  its  original  cause.  It  attributes 
the  origin  of  the  higher  characteristics  and  possibilities  of 
social  life  to  the  lower.  And  this  extraordinary  method 
of  accounting  for  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  in  man,  is, 
heaven  save  the  mark,  sometimes  called  "scientific."  It 
would  be  as  scientific  to  assume  that  water  naturally  rises 
above  its  source,  or  that  machinery  naturally  gives  out 
more  power  than  has  been  put  into  it. 

Economic  systems  cannot  be  the  original  cause  of 
institutions  that  rise  above  the  economic.  If  morality,  for 
instance,  is  evolved  from  economic  conditions,  an  equal 
moral  force  must  have  been  first  involved  into  economic 
conditions.  So,  also,  with  art,  politics,  religion  and  all 
the  rest.  Nothing  superior  to  economics  can  be  got  out 
of  economics  without  having  first  been  injected  into  eco- 
nomics. But  that  implies  what  materialistic  evolutionists 
deny — a  first  cause  or  force,  a  force  which  descends  from 
highest  spirituality  to  lowest  materiality  and  then  returns. 
It  is  a  force  that  in  this  respect  may  be  likened  to  rays  of 
sunlight  which  upon  striking  the  face  of  a  mirror  are  re- 
flected back.  The  mirror  does  not  generate  the  light  it 
projects.    Neither  does  the  material  generate  the  spiritual. 

The  manifestations  of  this  force  through  the  higher 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  253 

faculties  of  the  human  mind  and  heart  may,  indeed,  be 
checked  by  obstructions  along  the  lower  levels  through 
which  it  rises.  But  in  no  other  sense  can  it  be  truly 
said  to  be  directed  or  determined  by  those  levels.  They 
support  and  may  be  made  to  check  it;  but  they  have  no 
vitality  of  their  own  to  give.  Remove  the  obstructions, 
and  the  higher  faculties  are  no  more  determined  by  the 
lower  functions  than  the  volume  of  water  in  a  reservoir 
is  determined  by  the  shape  of  the  pipe  through  which  it 
is  received  from  its  source  in  the  mountain  lake. 

Given  an  economic  condition  from  which  the  fear  of 
want  had  been  banished,  and  the  higher  functions  of  so- 
ciety would  be  determined,  not  by  economic  modes,  but 
by  moral  ideals  unobstructed  and  unpolluted  by  sordid 
anxieties  and  hopes  and  fears. 

Nor  need  we  think  of  such  an  economic  condition  as 
fanciful.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  entirely  natural  in  the 
social  state.  It  would  be  a  reality  to-day,  under  the  ex- 
isting economic  system,  but  for  immoral  political  inter- 
ferences with  the  natural  distribution  of  wealth.  The 
possibilities  of  satisfying  the  material  wants  of  mankind 
are  practically  unlimited.  If  all  men  who  are  willing 
to  work  for  their  living  were  allowed  to  work,  and  each 
who  works  were  free  to  demand  effectively  the  share 
which  his  work  adds  to  current  production,  there  would 
be  neither  want  nor  fear  of  want,  but  more  than  enough 
for  all.  But  by  setting  up  and  perpetuating  the  institu- 
tion of  private  ownership  of  the  habitable  globe,  we  have 
empowered  a  comparatively  few  to  regulate  by  their  own 
all-powerful  interests  the  amount  and  character  of  work 
to  be  done  and  the  shares  into  which  the  result  shall  be 
distributed.  We  have  thereby  perpetuated  the  problem 
of  want  and  the  fear  of  want. 


254        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

What  keeps  this  problem  alive  is  not  our  economic 
system  in  itself,  but  one  of  our  political  institutions  re- 
acting upon  our  economic  system,  and  an  immoral  insti- 
tution at  that.  To  be  more  specific,  it  is  not  competition, 
the  essence  of  our  economic  system,  that  keeps  the 
problem  alive;  it  is  land  monopoly,  which  obstructs 
competition  and  makes  it  lop-sided.  Abolish  land  monop- 
oly, and  the  want  problem  would  banish  itself.  Abolish 
land  monopoly,  and  our  economic  system,  freed  from  ob- 
struction, would  emancipate  the  higher  human  faculties. 

So  long  as  these  are  held  in  subjection  to  economic 
systems,  whether  the  systems  be  selfishly  plutocratic  or 
fraternally  socialistic,  just  so  long  will  their  activities 
be  directed  and  determined  by  the  debasing  spirit  of  utili- 
tarianism. But  immediately  upon  their  release  their 
activities  would  come  under  the  influence  of  moral  ideals, 
derived,  without  sordid  pollution  or  distortion,  from  the 
original  moral  force  of  the  universe.  This  is  the  only 
social  evolution  which,  being  sound  in  natural  principle, 
is  wholesome  in  all  its  processes. 


PART     VI 


DEMOCRATIC     GOVERNMENT 


Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth. 

—Speech  at  Gettysburg  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 


Many  politicians  of  our  time  are  in  the  habit  of  laying  it  dow» 

as  a  self-evident  proposition,  that  no  people  ought  to  be  free  till 

they  are  fit  to  use  their  freedom.    The  maxim  is  worthy  of  the 

fool  in  the  old  story  who  resolved  not  to  go  into  the  water  till 

he  had  learnt  to  swim. 

—"Essay  on  Milton,"  by  Macaulay, 


I  will  have  never  a  noble. 

No  lineage  counted  great; 
Fishers  and  choppers  and  ploughmen 
Shall  constitute  a  state. 
— "Boston  Hymn,"  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


« 


So  long  as  a  single  one  amongst  your  brothers  has  no  vote  to 
represent  him  in  the  development  of  the  national  life,  so  long 
as  there  is  one  left  to  vegetate  in  ignorance  where  others  are  edu- 
cated, so  long  as  a  single  man,  able  and  willing  to  work,  lan- 
guishes in  poverty  through  want  of  work  to  do,  you  have  no 
country  in  the  sense  in  which  country  ought  to  exist — the  country 
of  all  and  for  all. 

— "On  the  Duties  of  Man,"  by  Mazzini. 


256 


I  charge  thee,  Love,  set  not  my  aim  too  low ; 

If  through  the  cycling  ages  I  have  been 

A  partner  in  thy  ignorance  and  sin, 
So  through  the  centuries  that  ebb  and  flow 
I  must,  with  thee,  God's  secrets  seek  to  know. 

Whate'er  the  conflict,  I  will  help  to  win 

Our  conquest  over  foes  without — within — 
And  where  thou  goest,  beloved,  I  will  go. 

Set  no  dividing  line  between  the  twain 
Whose  aim  and  end  are  manifestly  one; 

Whate'er  my  loss,  it  cannot  be  thy  gain — 
Wedded  the  light  and  heat  that  make  Life's  sun. 

Not  thine  the  glory  and  not  mine  the  shame. 

We  build  the  world  together  in  one  Name. 

-"The  New  Eve  to  the  Old  Adam,"  by  Annie  L.  Muzzey,  in 
Harper's  Magazine. 


O  blood  of  the  people!  changeless  tide,  through  century,  creed 

and  race! 
Still  one  as  the  sweet  salt  sea  is  one,  though  tempered  by  sun  and 

place ; 
The  same  in  the  ocean  currents,  and  the  same  in  the  sheltered 

seas; 
Forever  the  fountain  of  common  hopes  and  kindly  sympathies; 
Indian  and  Negro,  Saxon  and  Celt,  Teuton  and  Latin  and  Gaul- 
Mere  surface  shadow  and  sunshine;  while  the  sounding  unifies  all! 
One  love,  one  hope,  one  duty  theirs !    No  matter  the  time  or  ken, 
There  never  was  separate  heart-beat  in  all  the  races  of  men ! 

(But  alien  is  one — of  class,  not  race — he  has  drawn  the  line  for 

himself; 
His  roots  drink  life  from  inhuman  soil,  from  garbage  of  pomp 

and  pelf; 
His  heart  beats  not  with  the  common  beat,  he  has  changed  his 

life-stream's  hue ; 
He  deems  his  flesh  to  be  finer  flesh,  he  boasts  that  his  blood  is 

blue: 

357 


Patrician,  aristocrat,  tory — whatever  his  age  or  name, 
To  the  people's  rights  and  liberties,  a  traitor  ever  the  same. 
The  natural  crowd  is  a  mob  to  him,  their  prayer  a  vulgar  rhyme; 
The  freeman's  speech  is  sedition,  and  the  patriot's  deed  a  crime. 
Wherever  the  race,  the  law,  the  land, — whatever  the  time,  or 

throne. 
The  tory  is  always  a  traitor  to  every  class  but  his  own. 

Thank  God  for  a  land  where  pride  is  clipped,  where  arrogance 

stalks  apart; 
Where  law  and  song  and  loathing  of  wrong  are  words  of  the 

common  heart; 
Where  the  masses  honor  straightforward  strength,   and  know, 

when  veins  are  bled, 
That  the  bluest  blood  is  putrid  blood — ^that  the  people's  blood  is 

red. 

'^"Crispus  Attucks,"  by  John  Boyle  O'Reilly. 


Patricians  and  plebeians,  aristocrats  and  democrats,  have  alike 
stained  their  hands  with  blood  in  the  working  out  of  the  problem 
of  politics.  But  impartial  history  declares  also  that  the  crimes  of 
the  popular  party  have  in  all  ages  been  the  lighter  in  degree, 
while  in  themselves  they  have  more  to  excuse  them;  and  if  the 
violent  acts  of  revolutionists  have  been  held  up  more  conspicu- 
ously for  condemnation,  it  has  been  only  because  the  fate  of 
noblemen  and  gentlemen  has  been  more  impressive  to  the  imagin- 
ation than  the  fate  of  the  peasant  or  the  artisan. 

— Froude's  "Caesar,"  Ch.  VIII. 


258 


CHAPTER    I 

SELF-GOVERNMENT 

WHEN  the  American  colonies  had  determined  to 
secede  from  Great  Britain,  and,  as  they  expressed 
it,  "to  assume  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  the  separate 
and  equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  Nature  and  of 
Nature's  God"  entitled  them,  they  formally  stated  the 
causes  that  impelled  them  to  the  separation;  and  in 
justification  of  their  revolutionary  purpose,  they  pro- 
claimed certain  principles  which  they  held  to  be  self- 
evident  truths.  The  document  in  which  they  did  this  is 
known  to  every  American  school  boy  as  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 

In  so  far  as  that  document  states  the  causes  that  im- 
pelled the  colonies  to  throw  off  a  foreign  yoke,  it  is  to 
us  of  this  generation  only  a  historical  monument.  How- 
ever oppressive,  however  arrogant,  however  tyranni- 
cal the  policy  of  George  III  may  have  been  towards 
the  British  colonies  in  America,  that  policy  is  to  this 
generation  of  Americans  of  no  vital  concern.  It  belongs 
with  the  dead  and  buried  past.  But  in  so  far  as  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  enunciates  what  its  signers 
characterized  as  self-evident  truths,  it  is  more  than  a 
mere  landmark  of  history.  In  that  respect  it  is  the  pole 
star  of  our  national  career,  the  chart  by  which  our  ship 
of  state  must  steer  or  be  pounded  on  the  rocks,  the 
breath  of  national  life  which  God  breathed  into  the  nos- 
trils of  our  republic.  Those  truths  are  indeed  self- 
evident,  and  they  are  as  vital  now  as  ever.    Incontestable 

859 


26o        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

inferences  from  the  all-embracing  principle  of  the  uni- 
versal Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  consequent  brotherhood 
of  man,  and  therefore  denied  only  by  avowed  or  virtual 
atheists,  they  make  the  Declaration  of  Independence  im- 
mortal, and  place  this  nation,  to  the  degree  that  it  faith- 
fully holds  to  them,  in  the  van  of  human  progress. 

First  among  the  self-evident  truths  which  the  founders 
of  our  nation  thus  proclaimed  is  the  equality  of  all  men. 
This  is  the  tap  root  of  democracy.  It  always  has  been 
and  always  must  be.  It  is  the  antithesis  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  "divine  right  of  kings."  Not  that  all  are  created 
equal  in  size,  or  strength,  or  intellect,  or  will.  That  is 
not  the  implication.  But  that  all  are  endowed  equally  by 
their  Creator,  as  the  Declaration  of  Independence  goes 
on  to  explain,  "with  certain  unalienable  rights,"  among 
which  "are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 
It  is  equality  of  natural  rights,  therefore,  and  not  uni- 
formity of  personal  characteristics,  with  which  all  men 
are  held  by  democracy  to  be  endowed. 

Proceeding  from  this  primary  truth,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  next  proclaims  the  rightful  origin  and 
scope  of  government.  By  what  right  do  we  place  any 
part  of  man's  conduct  under  governmental  control? 
and  whence  comes  authority  to  govern?  The  answer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  is  plain.  Government 
is  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  to  life,  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness,  already  asserted;  and  it  origi- 
nates with  the  people  themselves.  "To  secure  these 
rights,"  says  the  Declaration,  "governments  are  instituted 
among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed."  Just  powers  of  government,  then, 
are  derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  govern- 
mental powers  not  so  derived  are  unjust.     This  funda- 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  261 

mental  proposition  is  also  an  indispensable  corollary  of 
the  primary  principle  that  "all  men  are  created  equal"; 
for  if  all  are  created  equal,  none  can  have  been  born  to 
govern  the  rest. 

Self-government  is  the  only  natural  government.  It 
is  the  only  kind  of  government  that  all  were  intended  for. 
This  is  well  enough  proved  by  the  fact  that  no  one  has 
ever  come  into  the  world  with  a  divine  commission,  not  a 
legible  one  at  any  rate,  to  govern  others.  All  claims  of 
natural  right  to  govern  others  without  their  consent  have 
rested  upon  might  instead  of  right,  and  have  turned  out 
in  the  end  to  be  only  claims  to  misgovern. 

The  autocratic  plea  that  some  peoples  are  unfit  for  self- 
government  was  riddled  by  Macaulay  when  he  said: 
"There  is  only  one  cure  for  the  evils  which  newly  acquired 
freedom  produces;  and  that  cure  is  freedom.  When 
a  prisoner  first  leaves  his  cell  he  cannot  bear  the  light  of 
day;  he  is  unable  to  discriminate  colors  or  recognize 
faces.  But  the  remedy  is  not  to  remand  him  into  his 
dungeon,  but  to  accustom  him  to  the  rays  of  the  sun. 
The  blaze  of  truth  and  liberty  may  at  first  dazzle  and  be- 
wilder nations  which  have  become  half  blind  in  the  house 
of  bondage.  But  let  them  gaze  on,  and  they  will  soon  be 
able  to  bear  it." 

The  democratic  doctrine  of  self-government  is  the  life- 
giving  principle  of  the  American  polity.  Not  only  is  it 
proclaimed  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  it  is 
woven  into  our  national  history.  True,  we  have  not  been 
strictly  faithful  to  it.  Manhood  suffrage  did  not  begin 
with  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  woman  suf- 
frage has  not  begun  yet  except  in  some  of  our  more  pro- 
gressive States.  These  faults,  however,  like  the  contin- 
ued recognition  of  the  slave  trade,  the  persistent  protection 


262         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

of  chattel  slavery  for  three-quarters  of  a  century,  and  the 
perpetuation,  of  land  monopoly  even  to  this  day,  are  to 
be  accounted  for  rather  as  short-comings  than  as  evidence 
of  national  hostility  to  national  ideals.  They  were  not 
deliberately  adopted  in  defiance  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence;  they  merely  survived  the  regime  which 
it  abolished,  and  lapped  over  into  the  better  one  which  it 
instituted.  Inconsistencies  of  that  sort  are  but  as  the 
wriggling  of  the  snake's  tail  after  the  snake  is  killed.* 

Fundamentally,  government  is  of  two  kinds — govern- 
ment by  all  the  governed,  and  government  by  superior 
force.  And  government  by  force  is  not  government  by 
right.  The  plausibility  of  the  theory  that  power  to  govern 
implies  right  to  govern,  may  be  conceded.  But  the  theory 
is  plausible  only;  it  is  really  without  validity.  Nothing 
could  be  more  repugnant  to  moral  principle  than  this  idea 
that  might  makes  right.  Though  might  and  right  may 
often  coincide,  yet  might  is  no  more  right  than  weakness 
is,  which  also  often  coincides  with  right.  Might  never 
coincides  with  right  except  by  accident.  Mere  force  can- 
not possibly  give  a  moral  right  to  govern.  We  must, 
therefore,  either  exclude  government  wholly  from  the 
domain  of  morals,  or  else  conclude  that  it  rests  funda- 
mentally not  upon  force  but  upon  the  consent  and  partici- 
pation of  the  governed. 

This  conclusion  is  in  accord  with  the  natural  law  of 
morals.  For  harmonious  moral  adjustment  in  the  social 
sphere  implies  equilibrium  of  rights  and  duties.  The 
duty  of  every  one  not  to  steal  or  murder,  springs  from 
and  is  balanced  by  the  right  of  everyone  else  not  to  be 
murdered  or  stolen  from.  In  these  respects  the  rights  of 
each  correlate  with  corresponding  duties  of  the  others. 
And  so  with  all  other  rights  and  their  correlative  duties, 

*  Same  subject  further  considered  in  Part  VII,  Chapter  II, 
"Patriotic  Ideals." 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  263 

among  which  is  the  right  of  each  to  be  free  within  the 
Umitations  of  like  freedom  to  all — limitations  which  are 
defined  by  the  corresponding  duty  of  all  to  respect  the 
freedom  of  each.  As  to  rights  and  duties,  therefore,  all 
persons  are  naturally  equal.  And  where  all  are  naturally 
equal,  none  can  coerce  by  force  as  matter  of  natural  right. 

In  this  view  of  the  moral  law,  government  by  supe- 
rior force  has  no  warrant.  Such  government  as  may 
exist  at  all  by  natural  right,  must  be  government  in  which 
the  governed  participate. 

The  same  conclusion  follows  from  the  more  definite 
premise  that  rights  to  life  and  liberty  are  natural.  No 
moral  philosophy  worthy  the  name  would  deny  the 
natural  quality  of  these  rights.  Nor  does  any  political 
philosophy  which  defends  government  at  all  deny  that 
its  primary  function  is  to  protect  them.  Yet  government 
by  all  is  the  only  kind  of  government  that  essentially 
recognizes  the  natural  right  of  all  to  life  and  Hberty. 

There  is  no  intention  here  to  ignore  the  atheistic  objec- 
tion to  the  idea  of  natural  rights.  Many  learned  men  deny 
natural  moral  law.  They  contend  that  questions  of  right- 
eousness are  questions  of  expediency ;  and  that  in  nature, 
including  human  nature,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  right 
to  be  claimed  or  a  duty  to  be  performed.  They  profess  to 
recognize  no  absolute  moral  standards,  holding  only  that 
to  be  right  which  from  experience  appears  to  them  to 
be  wise.  Such  men  are  atheists.  Though  they  preach 
from  pulpits  or  teach  in  the  class  rooms  of  pious  uni- 
versities, they  are  atheists  nevertheless.  To  deny  the 
eternal  sway  of  invariable  moral  law  is  to  deny  God. 
It  is  impossible,  consistently  with  sincere  recognition  of 
a  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  moral  as  well  as  material  uni- 
verse, to  regard  problems  of  right  and  wrong  as  mere 


264        ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

questions  of  expediency.  Though  moral  laws  may  be 
discovered  by  experience,  it  is  not  out  of  experience 
that  they  take  their  rise,  nor  do  they  vary  with  its  varia- 
tions. Just  as  the  physical  laws  of  gravitation  existed 
and  operated  with  unvarying  constancy  during  all  the 
time  before  Newton's  experiments,  so  the  moral  law 
must  have  existed  before  it  was  discovered  by  experi- 
ence or  formulated  by  philosophy.  It  must  be  coeval 
with  that  personification  of  infinite  justice  which  men 
call  God,  and  be  as  immutable.  It  was  as  truly  a  viola- 
tion of  moral  law  to  steal  before  Moses  promulgated  the 
eighth  commandment  as  after  some  social  experimenter 
discovered  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy. 

But  it  is  not  to  atheists,  either  of  the  pious  or  the  im- 
pious sort,  that  these  considerations  regarding  self-gov- 
erment  are  addressed.  Those  of  them  who  do  not  believe 
in  natural  rights  at  all,  are  in  no  mental  condition  to 
reflect  upon  an  argument  for  natural  principles  of  gov- 
ernment. Let  us  revert,  then,  to  the  main  point.  Which 
kind  of  government  is  natural — government  by  the  gov- 
erned, or  government  by  superior  force? 

Under  an  absolute  monarchy,  when  life  or  liberty  is  at 
stake  the  only  appeal  is  to  the  individual  generosity  of 
the  monarch.  His  beneficent  acts  are  not  dictated  by  any 
recognition  of  another's  right;  they  are  prompted  solely 
by  his  own  grace.  If  he  recognizes  rights  and  duties  at 
all,  it  is  only  as  rights  and  duties  between  master  and 
slave  are  recognized — the  monarch  has  rights  and  the 
subject  owes  duties.  The  great  fundamental  natural 
rights  to  life  and  liberty  are  not  guaranteed,  either  in 
fact  or  theory,  by  absolute  monarchy.  The  conception  is 
wiholly  foreign  to  that  system.  Absolute  monarchies, 
therefore,  are  not  natural. 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  265 

Of  oligarchies  the  same  thing  is  true.  Though  oli- 
garchies, like  monarchies,  might  give  security  to  life  and 
liberty,  it  would  be  as  matter  of  grace  and  not  in  recog- 
nition of  a  natural  right. 

No  less  comprehensive  a  system  than  government  by  all 
can  secure  those  rights  as  natural  rights.  That  is  the 
only  system  which  essentially  recognizes  them  as  natural, 
and  under  which  every  person  is  armed  with  the  best 
weapon  of  peace  yet  known  for  protecting  them.  Where 
all  are  accorded  an  equal  voice  in  government  as  matter 
of  right,  no  one  is  likely  in  practice  to  be  denied  equal  con- 
sideration with  reference  to  his  life  or  his  liberty;  and 
no  one  can  be  denied  it  consistently  with  the  principles  of 
such  a  government. 

The  question  of  self-government  would  be  very  much 
simplified,  if  a  clear  distinction  were  drawn  with  refer- 
ence to  the  legitimate  functions  of  government.  No  form 
of  government  has  any  right  to  coerce  an  individual  re- 
garding his  individual  concerns.  Coercion  of  individ- 
uals in  individual  concerns  is  an  invasion,  an  aggression; 
and  it  does  not  cease  to  be  such  because  the  invader  and 
aggressor  is  a  government  instead  of  another  individual 
or  a  mob.  This  is  as  true  of  government  by  all  as  of 
government  by  one. 

The  first  consideration  in  this  connection  is  the  self- 
evident  proposition  that  in  human  society  there  are 
two  classes  of  rights — those  pertaining  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  those  pertaining  to  the  community.  Of 
course  these  rights  have  their  corresponding  duties. 
Duties  and  rights  are  reciprocal.  There  can  be  no  right 
without  a  correlative  duty,  nor  any  duty  without  a  cor- 
relative right.  In  human  society,  therefore,  there  are 
rights  and  duties  which  attach  to  the  individual  as  an 


266        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

individual,  and  other  rights  and  duties  which  attach  to 
him  as  a  member  of  the  community.  For  convenience 
these  rights  and  duties  may  be  distinguished,  the  one 
class  as  "individual"  and  the  other  as  "communal." 

Individual  rights  and  duties  are  to  be  considered  as  if 
there  were  no  community.  They  inhere  and  are  com- 
plete in  the  individual.  Every  man  has,  for  instance,  a 
right  to  live.  It  is  a  right,  to  be  sure,  that  he  may  for- 
feit. If  he  threatens  another's  equal  right  to  live,  the 
other  may  in  self-defense  deprive  him  of  his  own  right; 
and  what  the  threatened  individual  may  rightfully  do, 
other  individuals,  or  the  community  as  a  whole,  may 
assist  him  in  doing.  Hence  one  individual  may  forfeit 
his  own  right  to  live  by  menacing  the  equal  right  to  life 
of  any  other.  But  primarily,  he  has  a  right  to  live. 
And  as  a  corollary  of  that  right  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
others  to  let  him  live,  as  it  is  his  duty  to  let  them  live. 
This  right  is  not  subject  to  the  will  of  a  majority  of  the 
community.  It  would  be  as  despotic  for  a  majority  in 
a  republic  arbitrarily  to  vote  away  the  life  of  a  fellow, 
as  for  one  person  upon  a  throne  to  decree  the  death  of  a 
subject.  Majorities  may  vote  away  lives,  as  monarchs 
decree  them  away;  but  in  either  case  the  act  is  one  of 
brute  force  and  not  of  right.  Over  the  lives  of  individ- 
uals not  forfeited  by  their  aggressions  upon  the  rights  of 
others,  the  community,  whether  through  the  force  of 
unlimited  monarchy  or  of  popular  majorities,  has  no  just 
jurisdiction.  The  right  to  live  is  an  individual  right.  It  is 
a  right  that  belongs  to  the  individual  as  such.  He,  and  of 
all  men  he  alone,  has  the  right  to  dispose  of  it.  The  only 
just  limitation  upon  any  man's  right  to  life  is  that  he 
shall  respect  the  right  to  life  of  every  other.  And  as 
with  the  right  to  life,  so  with  the  right  to  all  other  things 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  267 

relating  to  individuals  in  their  individual  capacity.  As 
every  man  has  the  right  to  life,  subject  only  to  the  equal 
right  to  life  of  all  other  men,  so  has  every  man  the  right 
to  live  his  own  life  in  his  own  way,  subject  only  to  the 
equal  right  of  all  other  men  to  live  their  own  lives  in  their 
own  way.  His  liberty  in  this  respect  is  bounded  justly 
only  by  his  duty  to  allow  equal  liberty  to  everyone  else. 
This  class  of  rights  is  individual,  not  communal.  And 
self-government  as  to  individual  rights  can  only  mean 
the  government  of  each  by  himself,  free  from  all  med- 
dling interference  whether  malevolent  or  benevolent. 

But  the  other  class  of  rights,  those  which  attach  to  in- 
dividuals as  members  of  communities,  are  not  so  absolute. 
As  to  them  there  can  be  no  individual  disposition. 
They  attach  not  to  each  person  individually,  but  to  all 
persons  jointly  or  in  common.  These  common  or  com- 
munal rights  relate  to  the  preservation  of  the  public 
peace,  the  regulation  of  highways  and  of  land  tenures 
generally,  and  the  administration  of  the  common  income. 
They  are  communal,  as  distinguished  from  individual, 
rights.  It  is  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  not  each  in- 
dividual, that  has  the  right,  for  example,  to  determine  the 
locality  or  character  of  a  highway,  the  terms  from  time  to 
time  of  land  tenure,  and  the  expenditure  of  the  common 
income.  The  individual,  therefore,  has  not  the  same  right 
of  determination  as  to  such  matters  that  he  has  as  to 
rights  that  are  exclusively  individual.  His  rights  here  are 
merged  in  the  rights  of  his  fellows,  so  as  to  create  a  new 
right — that  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  The  commu- 
nity must  act  as  to  this  right  in  its  corporate  capacity. 

But  how  can  the  community  so  act  ?  Shall  it  require  a 
unanimous  vote?  Shall  it  submit  to  the  will  of  a  few 
who  assume  to  be  better  qualified  or  more  deeply  inter- 


268         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

ested  than  the  rest?  Or  shall  it  Usten  to  all  who  offer 
advice,  and  act  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  majority? 
Those  are  the  three  choices,  and  the  last  alone  commends 
itself.  To  require  a  unanimous  vote,  would  be  to  place 
communal  judgment  under  the  veto  of  any  single  individ- 
ual who  chose  to  exercise  it.  To  submit  to  the  will  of  a  few, 
would  deprive  all  the  rest  of  a  voice  in  common  affairs. 
But  by  giving  a  voice  to  all  and  acting  upon  the  decision 
of  the  majority,  the  nearest  practicable  approach  is  made 
to  securing  the  judgment  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
It  is  here  majorities  have  their  proper  place.  By  means 
of  majorities,  communal  as  distinguished  from  individ- 
ual rights  are  decided.  Self-government  as  to  communal 
rights,  therefore,  requires  that  all  be  heard  and  that  the 
majority  determine. 

Summarizing  the  foregoing  analysis,  we  find  that  self- 
government  implies  that  as  to  individual  rights  each 
individual  shall  govern  himself  in  his  own  way,  free  from 
all  governmental  interference,  upon  the  sole  condition 
that  he  respect  the  equal  rights  of  other  individuals ;  and 
that  as  to  communal  rights,  each  individual  shall  have 
a  voice,  and  the  majority  vote  shall  be  taken  as  the  cor- 
porate expression. 


CHAPTER    II 

UNIVERSAL   SUFFRAGE 

GOVERNMENT  by  all  the  governed,  commonily 
designated  self-government,  can  be  administered 
only  by  universal  suffrage.  All  the  people  do  not 
govern  unless  all  have  a  potential  voice  in  the 
government.  Universal  suffrage  may  indeed  fail 
to  secure  government  by  all,  but  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  government  by  all  without  it.  The 
question,  then,  of  whether  or  not  suffrage  is  a  natural 
right  is  determined  by  the  question  of  whether  govern- 
ment by  all  or  government  by  superior  force  is  the  natural 
kind  of  government. 

It  may  well  be  objected  that  a  majority  under  uni- 
versal suffrage  is  in  no  wise  different  from  an  oligarchy 
under  restricted  suffrage,  for  it  is  true  that  majorities 
are  often  autocratic.  But  this  is  chargeable  to  defective 
methods.  In  essential  principle,  and  to  a  very  high 
degree  in  actual  practice,  majorities  are  radically  differ- 
ent from  oligarchies. 

Majorities  proceed  upon  the  principle  that  rights  to 
life  and  liberty  are  natural  and  equal ;  oligarchies  proceed 
upon  the  theory  that  these  rights  are  neither  equal  nor 
natural,  but  are  gifts  from  superiors.  In  actual  prac- 
tice an  oligarchy,  which  is  a  stable  class  placed  over 
other  classes,  is  unresponsive  to  their  demands;  whereas 
a  majority,  a  shifting  quantity  in  only  one  class  but  that  a 
class  which  embraces  the  whole  community,  is  affected 
by  all.    With  these  distinctions  clear,  all  rational  objec- 

369 


270        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

tions  to  government  by  majority  are  removed,  if  we 
conceive  of  government  as  confined  to  its  legitimate  func- 
tions. When  government  is  conceived  of  as  possessing 
power  to  regulate  private  concerns,  government  by  ma- 
jority is  as  intolerable  as  any  other  species  of  tyranny. 
But  when  it  is  conceived  of  merely  as  the  agent  for  pro- 
tecting natural  rights  and  administering  common  prop- 
erty, government  by  majority  commends  itself  as  fair 
and  natural.  It  is  the  only  method  of  securing  in  common 
concerns  common  action  in  accordance  with  common 
agreement. 

The  same  distinction  also  makes  the  naturalness  of  the 
right  of  suffrage  self-evident.  To  ihave  a  voice  in  the 
management  of  the  organization  which  is  charged  with 
the  protection  of  everyone's  life  and  liberty  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  everyone's  interest  in  common  property, 
is  a  natural  right  if  anything  can  be. 

Objections  to  universal  suffrage  as  a  right,  which  rest 
upon  the  absurdity  of  extending  the  suffrage  to  minors, 
to  convicted  criminals  and  to  the  insane,  assuming  that 
universal  suffrage  logically  demands  that  extension,  are 
the  veriest  pettifogging. 

There  is  a  period  in  everyone's  life  when  he  is  con- 
cededly  incompetent  to  participate  in  government.  This 
is  indubitably  true  of  an  infant  in  arms.  Later  there 
comes  a  period  when,  if  of  sane  mind,  he  is  competent. 
This  is  certainly  true  of  the  man  or  woman  of  30.  But 
as  no  general  rule  can  be  formulated  for  determining 
as  to  each  person  when  he  crosses  the  line  between  the 
incompetency  of  childhood  and  the  competency  of  man- 
hood, it  is  customary  to  fix  an  age  period  of  general  ap- 
plication arbitrarily.  If  the  period  fixed  be  reasonable,  it 
involves  in  no  rational  sense  a  denial  of  the  suffrage. 


UNIVERSAL  SUFFRAGE  271 

A  similar  principle  applies  to  the  insane.  Men  who 
are  adjudged  incompetent  from  insanity  to  manage  their 
own  affairs,  may  be  denied  the  suffrage  without  the 
slightest  prejudice  to  the  principle  of  suffrage  as  a  natural 
right.  And  as  to  convicts,  the  same  principle  that  justi- 
fies the  denial  to  them  of  life  or  liberty  consistently  with 
the  theory  of  natural  rights  to  life  and  liberty,  may  deny 
them  the  suffrage  without  raising  any  question  of  incon- 
sistency with  reference  to  the  suffrage  as  a  natural  right. 

In  other  words,  to  withhold  the  suffrage  from  persons 
incapable  of  performing  ordinary  obligations  is  not  in- 
consistent with  the  principle  that  suffrage  is  a  natural 
right.  Liberty  is  a  natural  right.  But  consistently  with 
that  right  children  are  held  in  tutelage.  Consistently 
with  that  right  any  one  who  is  "non  compos"  is  restrained. 
Consistently  with  that  right  again  convicts  are  impris- 
oned. To  argue  that  the  suffrage  is  not  a  natural  right 
because  it  is  properly  withheld  from  immature  individ- 
uals, from  individuals  adjudged  "non  compotes,"  and 
from  criminal  convicts,  is  to  argue  that  liberty  itself  is  not 
a  natural  right.  And  if  liberty  be  not  a  natural  right, 
then  the  only  basis  for  natural  right  is  superior  force, 
which  is  a  moral  absurdity.* 

Self-government  has  been  defined  as  not  a  right  at  all 
but  a  capacity ;  and  the  right  to  exercise  a  capacity,  as 
depending  on  the  possession  of  it.  That  is  a  queer  in- 
version. Without  enjoyment  of  the  right,  the  capacity 
can  never  be  acquired.  It  is  experience  in  governing 
himself  that  gives  strength  of  character  to  the  individual ; 
it  is  the  experience  of  their  members  participating  in 
public  affairs  that  gives  strength  of  character  to  com- 

*  Same  subject  further  considered  in  Part  VIT,  Chapter  II, 
"Patriotic  Ideals"  and  Chapter  III,  "Trampling  Upon  Patriotic 
Ideals." 


mja        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

munities.  Even  if  that  were  not  so,  the  anti-suffrage  con- 
tention falsely  assumes  that  some  people  can  govern 
other  people  and  some  communities  other  communities 
better  than  the  others  can  govern  themselves.  If  this 
were  true,  it  would  lead  straight  to  universal  monarchy. 
For  there  must,  in  that  case,  be  at  any  given  time  some 
man  who  can  govern  all  the  rest  better  than  they  can 
govern  themselves ;  and  in  accordance  with  the  contention 
he  ought  to  be  enthroned.  At  any  rate,  that  contention 
is  the  essential  principle  of  monarchism,  which  derives 
all  its  force  from  the  theory  that  the  masses  cannot  govern 
themselves,  but  must  be  governed,  both  with  reference  to 
their  individual  and  their  communal  rights,  by  others. 

Though  we  admitted  this  principle,  we  should  still 
have  to  ask  how  the  governing  nations  or  classes  are  to 
be  selected.  If  they  were  selected  by  the  governed,  that 
would  be  government  by  consent  of  the  governed.  But 
they  never  are  so  selected.  They  select  themselves.  And 
they  do  so  selfishly.  No  nation  or  class  has  ever  forced 
its  dominion  upon  another  for  the  good  of  the  latter,  and 
none  ever  will.  The  desire  for  mastership  is  the  most 
evil  of  all  passions ;  and  however  it  may  mask  its  designs 
in  philanthropic  pretensions,  the  nation  or  class  that 
seeks  to  govern  others  does  so  for  its  own  aggrandize- 
ment. "It  is  not  for  my  breakfast  that  you  invite  me 
down,"  said  the  goat  in  the  fable  to  the  wolf  who  had 
urged  him  to  descend  to  the  foot  of  the  cliff  where  rich 
grass  would  give  him  a  better  breakfast,  "but  for  your 
own." 

The  mob  that  blows  up  a  factory  with  dynamite  is  not 
to  be  let  alone,  it  is  objected ;  as  if  the  right  of  its  mem- 
bers to  self-government  demanded  that  it  should  be  let 
alone.    The  objection  is  not  pertinent.    In  such  a  case  the 


UNIVERSAL  SUFFRAGE  273 

mob  is  restrained  because  it  is  denying  the  right  of  self- 
government  to  others.  If  the  mob  could  harm  no  one  but 
its  own  members,  and  not  disturb  or  jeopardize  the 
public  peace,  there  would  be  no  right  of  interference 
on  the  part  of  the  community.  Again,  the  hypothesis  of 
government  of  physicians  and  keepers  in  a  lunatic  asylum 
by  the  insane  inmates,  is  gravely  advanced  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  unsoundness  of  government  by  majorities. 
This  is  on  a  par  with  the  familiar  and  oft-answered  ob- 
jection to  universal  suffrage,  that  infants  in  arms  would 
under  that  doctrine  have  the  right  to  vote.  To  make  ex- 
ceptional conditions  like  these  the  basis  for  an  argument 
against  self-government  and  universal  suffrage  is  to  ex- 
pose the  weakness  of  the  cause  in  behalf  of  which  it  is 
made. 

No  such  plea  would  be  offered  by  any  candid  man  who 
had  analyzed  the  principle  of  self-government  by  universal 
suffrage  before  attacking  it.  Let  it  be  clearly  understood 
that  the  principle  of  self-government  has  a  twofold  appli- 
cation— in  its  relation  to  the  individual,  and  in  its  relation 
to  the  community ;  that  in  its  relation  to  the  individual,  it 
implies  that  his  freedom  shall  be  limited  only  by  the  equal 
freedom  of  everyone  else ;  that  in  its  relation  to  the  com- 
munity, it  implies  that  each  ordinary  person  of  maturity 
shall  have  an  equal  voice  with  every  other  in  affecting 
the  majority  which  determines  the  current  management 
of  affairs  that  are  common  to  all — let  these  simple  and 
self-commendatory  propositions  be  apprehended,  and  all 
the  frivolous  talk  about  voting  in  lunatic  asylums,  about 
voting  by  babies,  about  majority  government  not  being 
self-government,  will  sound  as  puerile  as  in  fact  it  is. 
And  as  to  the  common  assertion  that  the  end  of  all 
good  government  is  self-government,  that  will  sound  as 


1274        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

empty  as  the  same  sentiment  applied  to  an  individual, 
thus :  "The  end  of  all  good  conduct  is  self-conduct."  As 
the  individual's  conduct  cannot  be  good  unless  it  is  self- 
controlled,  neither  can  government  be  good  unless  it  is 
self-government.  Despotism  may  preserve  the  peace,  but 
despotism  cannot  make  men  peaceable.  Self-government 
by  universal  suffrage,  and  this  alone,  can  do  that.  It  may 
not  do  it  at  once,  for  character  is  not  made  in  a  day.  But 
it  is  the  only  kind  of  government  that  can  do  it  ultimately. 


CHAPTER    III 

CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS 

WHAT  to  do  with  the  criminal  classes  is  an  ever- 
recurring  problem  of  democracy.  It  is  usually 
treated  as  if  these  classes  were  composed  of  brutes,  and 
it  were  supplementary  to  the  problem  of  what  to  do 
with  hawks,  or  rats,  or  foxes,  or  wolves  or  other  beasts 
and  birds  of  prey  that  pester  mankind.  At  best  it  is 
treated  as  if  the  members  of  the  criminal  classes  were  a 
different  kind  of  creature  from  ourselves,  having  not 
only  a  different  environment,  but  different  heredity  and 
radically  different  moral  impulses. 

Until  that  attitude  is  changed  for  one  more  consid- 
erate, the  problem  will  not  be  solved.  All  the  whipping- 
posts that  can  be  erected,  all  the  novel  methods  of  legal- 
ized homicide  that  can  be  invented,  all  the  perfunctory 
red-tape  kindness  that  professional  penal  reformers  can 
devise,  all  the  learning  of  "scientific"  penology,  will  not 
in  the  least  degree  advance  the  solution  of  the  criminal 
problem  until  the  criminal  classes  are  sincerely  and  in- 
telligently considered  as  men  like  other  men. 

The  first  point  for  consideration  along  that  line  is 
motive.  In  itself  criminal  motive  is  nobody's  concern 
but  the  criminal's.  It  does,  indeed,  go  deeper  than  crim- 
inal action.  It  is,  indeed,  the  essence  of  crime.  When 
fostered  it  does  build  up  criminal  character.  But  criminal 
motive  in  itself  injures  no  one  but  him  in  whom  it  ex- 
ists. It  is  distinctly  an  individual  affair,  an  evil  to  be 
reformed  by  the  individual  in  response  to  his  own  choice 

275 


% 


2y6        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

and  in  his  own  way.  Organized  society  has  no  function 
regarding  it. 

For  the  reformation  of  motives,  we  may  teach  and 
preach  and  admonish;  but  we  must  do  so  as  individuals 
to  individuals.  We  have  no  right  to  put  men's  motives 
into  moral  strait- jackets  by  force.  And  we  could  not 
if  we  would.  The  individual  mind  and  the  individual 
conscience  are  things  which  cannot  be  controlled  by  ex- 
ternal force  either  for  good  or  for  evil.  The  great 
Architect  of  the  universe,  personification  of  all  wisdom 
and  all  good,  appreciates  the  importance  of  intellectual 
and  moral  freedom,  even  if  the  best  and  wisest  among 
us  will  not.  He  has  made  it  impossible  for  men  by  force 
to  regulate  the  motives  of  other  men. 

Criminal  motive  not  embodied  in  action  harmful  to 
others,  raises  a  spiritual  question  alone.  There  is  no 
social  problem,  no  question  for  the  penologist,  no  right 
in  organized  society  to  resort  to  force,  until  criminal 
motive  translates  itself  into  criminal  conduct. 

Nor  is  this  a  special  plea  for  the  criminal  classes. 
It  is  simply  a  recognition  of  a  universal  right.  Criminal 
motives  are  not  confined  to  the  criminal  classes.  They 
exist  in  greater  or  less  degree  in  all  classes  and  in  all 
individuals.  The  best  among  us  is  not  wholly  free  from 
crime,  in  so  far  as  motive  constitutes  crime.  For  what 
is  criminal  motive  at  bottom  but  selfish  desire  ?  Whoever 
wishes  for  what  in  justice  belongs  to  another,  whoever 
aspires  to  dominion  over  others,  even  "for  their  own 
good,"  whoever  prizes  privileges  for  himself  above  the 
rights  of  others — all  such  harbor  criminal  motives.  And 
it  makes  no  difference  whether  their  selfish  desires  are 
confined  within  legal  limitations  or  not.  A  wrong  is 
none  the  less  a  wrong  for  having  legal  sanction.     We 


CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS  277 

may  change  its  name  by  law,  but  we  cannot  thereby 
change  its  character.  It  is  still  essentially  a  crime,  and 
the  desire  for  its  advantages  is  still  a  criminal  motive. 
In  criminal  motive,  then,  the  race  is  at  one  with  itself. 
Within  that  realm  there  are  no  distinctly  criminal  classes, 
for  all  classes  are  criminal. 

But  when  criminal  motive  does  translate  itself  into 
harmful  action,  then  a  criminal  class  is  distinguishable 
and  the  power  of  organized  society  is  challenged. 

Social  order — not  disorder,  but  order;  both  the  degree 
of  order  that  now  exists  and  all  possibilities  of  attain- 
ing to  higher  degrees — depends  upon  social  peace.  There 
must  be  peace  that  orderliness  may  develop  unto  perfec- 
tion. And  peace  there  cannot  be  so  long  as  criminal 
motives  generate  criminal  actions,  unless  society,  with 
the  superior  power  of  general  organization,  maintains 
peace  by  protecting  individuals  from  aggression. 

Now  there  is  a  universally  recognized  class  with  which 
aggression  is  habitual.  It  is  the  class  that  includes  pick- 
pockets, highwaymen,  confidence  men,  forgers,  and  in- 
cidentally murderers — a  predatory  class.  With  that  class 
criminal  motive  embodied  in  criminal  action  constitutes 
an  aggression  upon  individual  rights  and  consequently 
an  infraction  of  the  social  peace.  It  thereby  raises  up 
a  plain  social  duty.  The  duty  of  society  is  clear  enough 
to  prevent  such  depredations  as  far  as  possible,  and  if 
necessary  for  that  purpose  to  punish  depredators  when 
detected.  It  is  at  least  clear  that  men  of  that  kind  should 
be  forcibly  restrained. 

Thus  far  the  most  conservative  reader  will  doubtless 
agree.  If  he  finds  any  fault  it  will  probably  be  that 
this  is  not  severe  enough.  For  the  class  referred  to  is 
what  is  commonly  distinguished  as  the  criminal  class> 


278         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

and  that  is  a  class  with  which  your  conservative,  espe- 
cially if  he  is  a  churchman  of  the  pious  variety,  has  lit- 
tle patience.  He  may  be  humane,  and  have  theories 
about  reforming  this  criminal  class.  Possibly  he  may 
be  addicted  to  the  reformatory  theory  of  an  enforced 
hygienic  diet.  Or  he  may  prefer  forcible  kindness.  If 
old-fashioned  he  may  have  confidence  in  religious  tracts ; 
if  new-fashioned  he  may  come  out  strong  on  heredity, 
and  favor  physical  dismemberment  or  at  least  prohibition 
of  marriages  among  criminals.  But  he  is  more  likely  to 
indulge  the  conviction  that  the  only  reformed  criminals 
are  dead  criminals. 

Over  the  question  of  severity  in  the  treatment  of  the 
criminal  class,  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  raise  any  issue 
with  conservatives.  On  the  contrary,  we  may  go  as  far 
as  they  in  demanding  that  crime  be  prevented ;  and  as  far 
as  they  can  justify  their  demands  on  principles  of  pre- 
vention, in  also  demanding  the  punishment  of  criminals. 
If  it  could  be  demonstrated  that  the  death  penalty  is  a 
necessary  and  effective  deterrent,  and  not  more  injurious 
to  those  who  inflict  than  to  those  who  suffer  it,  even  the 
death  penalty  for  the  restraint  of  criminals  might  be  stub- 
bornly insisted  upon.  It  is  of  vital  importance  to  society 
that  society  repress  crime. 

But  we  must  not  look  for  criminals  in  the  so-called 
criminal  classes  alone.  Nor  yet  among  those  only  whose 
crimes  are  denounced  by  the  criminal  law.  All  crimes  are 
not  enumerated  in  the  criminal  law ;  neither  are  the  worst 
crimes  enumerated  there,  for  the  worst  crimes  of  modem 
society  are  legally  sanctioned  by  society  itself.  And  while 
we  may  not  characterize  beneficiaries  of  these  crimes  as 
criminal  in  any  conventional  sense,  no  one  can  deny  that 
most  of  them  are  criminal  essentially.    For  with  most  of 


CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS  279 

them — ^not  only  among  the  rich,  but  also  among  the  com- 
paratively poor — a  wrongful  motive  (desire  to  appropri- 
ate what  of  right  belongs  to  others)  and  a  wrongful  action 
(use  of  influence  to  perpetuate  the  sanctioning  by  society 
of  such  appropriations)  do  coincide,  and  in  that  coinci- 
dence is  the  perfection  of  crime. 

Those  are  the  criminals  who  are  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  existence  of  a  so-called  criminal  class.  They  set 
a  pernicious  example  of  getting  incomes  without  doing 
useful  work.  If  such  as  they  may  do  this  with  the  sanc- 
tion of  a  criminal  law  the  sanctions  of  which  they  con- 
trol, why  may  not  persons  less  advantageously  situated 
do  it  in  defiance  of  that  law  ?  This  inquiry  may  not  play 
a  conscious  part  in  the  development  of  the  ethics  of  the 
disreputable  criminal  class;  but  if  one  of  their  ethical 
experts  should  lay  it  before  a  moralist  of  the  respectable 
criminal  class,  what  plausible  answer  could  he  make 
without  begging  the  question?  We  must  remember,  too, 
in  this  connection,  that  conscious  influences  for  evil  are 
never  the  most  potent.  It  is  the  unconscious  influence  of 
an  evil  example,  the  influence  that  is  not  recognized  and 
could  not  be  explained  if  it  were,  that  has  possibilities  of 
incalculable  harm.  Such  influences  are  the  familiar  phe- 
nomena of  legalized  theft,  which  manifest  themselves  in 
the  great  unearned  fortunes  that  distinguish  the  age  in 
which  we  live. 

Nor  is  it  by  pernicious  example  alone  that  the  reputable 
criminal  class  produces  and  fosters  the  disreputable.  It 
does  it  also  and  chiefly  by  forcing  abnormal  individual 
development  into  a  mould  of  disorderly  social  develop- 
ment. 

What,  for  illustration,  could  contribute  more  effectively 
to  the  creation  and  propagation  of  a  disreputable  criminal 


28o        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

class  than  a  law  denying  to  everyoody  except  a  few  and 
their  assigns  the  right  to  live?  Since  only  these  few 
and  their  favorites,  and  purchasers  from  them  of  life 
rights,  could  live  without  committing  legal  depredations, 
a  class  would  inevitably  grow  up  which  would  prey  upon 
all  other  classes.  Even  though  they  might  buy  the  right 
to  live,  and  buy  it  cheap,  yet  it  is  conceivable  that  under 
the  influence  of  environment — and  heredity,  if  you  in- 
sist upon  it — the  members  of  this  predatory  class  would 
prefer  a  precarious  but  strenuous  life  of  disreputable 
crime  to  a  reputable  existence  at  the  price  of  legalized 
blackmail.  The  old  "free  traders,"  who  would  now  be 
known  as  "smugglers,"  were  examples  of  this  disposition 
to  become  lawless  criminals  rather  than  submit  to  the 
exactions  of  lawful  criminals. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  imagine  an  institution  which 
makes  of  the  natural  right  to  live  a  legal  privilege.  The 
right  to  live  necessitates  the  right  to  a  place  on  thte 
earth  to  live  upon,  and  the  right  to  live  the  social  life 
necessitates  the  right  to  live  on  the  earth  at  places  where 
social  opportunities  cluster.  To  deny  the  latter  right 
is  to  deny  social  life;  to  deny  the  former  is  to  deny 
life  altogether.  Yet  the  law  denies  both.  Except  to 
a  favored  few  and  their  assigns,  the  right  to  a  place 
upon  the  earth  is  denied.  Babies  are  born  by  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  every  year,  who  have  no  legal  right 
upon  this  planet.  It  is  true  that  they  may  buy  a  right 
from  babies  whose  ancestors  were  successful  in  the  game 
of  grab.  But  they  must  buy  it  by  supporting  in  greater 
or  less  degree  those  other  babies  with  their  labor,  as 
both  classes  grow  up.  It  is  true,  too,  that  they  may 
buy  some  places  for  very  little.  But  if  they  would  buy 
where  social  opportunities  cluster  they  must  pay  dear. 


CRIME  AND  CRIMINALS  281 

Some  of  these  piaces  are  so  rich  in  social  opportunities 
that  even  a  few  square  feet  could  not  be  bought  with 
all  the  earnings  of  a  day  laborer  accumulated  since  the 
birth  of  his  Elder  Brother.  But  whether  the  price  be 
high  or  low,  it  is  a  price  for  the  right  to  live — for  the 
bare  right  to  live  if  low;  for  the  right  to  live  the  social 
life  if  high.  In  either  case  it  is  legalized  crime,  whereby 
some  of  the  people  are  forced  either  to  support  others 
in  idleness  by  reputable  labor  or  to  prey  as  a  criminal 
class  upon  the  community. 

While  that  phase  of  the  problem  of  dealing  with  the 
criminal  classes  remains  unnoticed  by  criminologists,  the 
possibility  that  those  "scientists"  will  solve  the  problem 
is  hopeless. 


CHAPTER    IV 

PUBLIC   DEBTS 

IF  the  statistics  of  all  the  public  debts  of  this  country 
were  available,  the  amount  would  be  appalling.  In 
this  great  aggregate  the  national  debt  is  as  a  drop  in 
the  bucket.  In  addition  to  that  there  are  State  debts, 
county  debts,  city  debts,  school  district  debts,  and  town- 
ship debts,  which  make  an  unbearable  aggregate.  They 
are  a  growing  first  lien  upon  the  industry  and  property 
of  the  country,  and  sooner  or  later,  if  they  keep  on  grow- 
ing, there  will  come  a  time  when  they  must  be  repudiated. 
Now  repudiation  is  associated  with  the  idea  of  dis- 
honesty, and  this  raises  a  question  which  demands  calm 
consideration. 

To  identify  repudiation  absolutely  with  dishonesty,  two 
wide  chasms  in  thought  must  be  bridged.  It  must  be 
assumed,  in  the  first  place,  that  government  has  the 
moral  right  to  bind  future  generations  by  contract;  and, 
in  the  second,  that  all  contracts  are  morally  inviolable. 
If  the  government  has  not  the  right  to  bind  future 
generations  by  contract,  then  future  generations  have 
the  moral  right,  when  they  come  upon  the  stage  of  action, 
to  repudiate  ancient  government  contracts  which  as- 
sume to  bind  them ;  and  if  all  contracts  are  not  morally 
inviolable,  then,  even  though  government  might  morally 
bind  future  generations  by  contract,  it  could  not  do  so 
by  all  kinds  of  contracts,  and  illegitimate  government 
contracts  might  be  repudiated  without  dishonesty.  It 
is  incumbent,   therefore,  upon   those  who  undertake  to 


PUBLIC   DEBTS  283 

argue  that  the  principle  of  repudiation  is  dishonest,  to 
prove,  first,  that  government  can  morally  bind  future 
generations  by  contract;  and,  second,  that  repudiation 
of  contracts  is  necessarily  dishonest.  But  so  far  from 
being  able  to  prove  both  these  propositions,  they  can 
prove  neither. 

Government  cannot  morally  bind  future  generations. 
To  concede  its  right  to  do  so  would  contravene  the  root 
principle  of  self-government.  This  principle  that  it  is 
the  right  of  every  people  to  govern  themselves,  has  for 
a  corollary  the  principle  that  it  is  the  right  of  every 
generation  to  govern  itself.  In  principle,  it  is  as  in- 
tolerable that  dead  and  gone  generations  should  govern 
living  generations,  as  that  one  nation  should  govern  an- 
other. In  degree  it  is  worse.  Government  by  genera- 
tions that  have  passed  away  is  that  most  oppressive  of 
all  tyrannies — the  tyranny  of  "the  dead  hand." 

To  no  function  of  government  is  this  observation  so 
pertinent  as  to  taxation.  It  is  by  means  of  taxation  that 
peoples  are  most  effectually  enslaved.  Whoever  con- 
trols the  purse  strings  of  a  nation  governs  the  nation. 
To  a  keen  appreciation  of  that  truth  by  the  pioneers 
of  English  freedom  we  are  indebted  for  the  familiar 
constitutional  principle  that  revenue  bills  must  originate 
in  the  popular  branch  of  the  legislature.  It  was  early 
seen  that  if  the  people  would  govern  themselves,  they 
must  tax  themselves. 

And  it  is  the  taxing  function  that  is  operated  when 
one  generation  assumes  to  bind  future  generations  by 
contract.  The  right  of  government  to  deal  with  funds 
in  its  own  hands,  funds  and  other  property  which  be- 
long to  it,  is  not  denied.  Neither  is  it  denied  that 
government  may  make  contracts  to  be  fully  executed, 


284        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

performed,  completed  and  done  with  within  such  rea- 
sonable time  in  the  future  as  to  make  it  clear  that  they 
do  not  constitute  evasive  attempts  to  govern  future  gen- 
erations. What  is  denied  is  that  government  has  the 
right  to  give  morally  binding  force  to  contracts  requiring 
future  generations  to  submit  to  taxation,  either  in  char- 
acter or  amount,  without  their  own  consent.  To  assume 
to  give  force  to  such  contracts  is  in  its  essence  a  legisla- 
tive, not  a  contractual  act;  and  it  is  a  clear  principle, 
not  only  of  political  philosophy  but  of  jurisprudence, 
that  any  exercise  of  legislative  functions  is  at  all  times, 
so  far  as  relates  to  its  future  operations,  subject  to 
repudiation. 

This  alone  is  sufficient  to  dispose  of  the  notion  that 
repudiation  is  necessarily  dishonest.  But  even  if  the 
point  that  government  cannot  contract  away  the  rights 
of  future  generations  were  waived,  and  it  were  assumed 
that  government  has  that  right,  the  second  point  would 
still  remain:  contracts,  though  authoritatively  made,  are 
not  necessarily  inviolable. 

While  it  is  true  that  repudiation  of  public  contracts 
may  be  dishonest,  it  is  not  true  that  it  is  necessarily  so. 
Whether  the  repudiation  of  a  contract  be  dishonest  or 
not,  depends  not  upon  the  fact  of  a  contract,  but  upon 
its  character.  There  are  such  things  as  unconscionable 
contracts ;  and  repudiation  of  unconscionable  contracts 
is  not  dishonest;  it  is  rather  their  enforcement  that  is 
dishonest. 

We  here  touch  upon  a  principle  which  is  aptly  illus- 
trated in  the  legal  history  of  private  contracts.  At  one 
time  it  was  held  by  the  courts  that  private  contracts 
must  be  performed  according  to  their  terms.  A  leading 
case  had  to  do  with  one  of  those  practical  jokes   in 


PUBLIC   DEBTS  285 

geometrical  progression  with  which  we  still  astonish 
our  children.  To  get  his  horse  shod  a  farmer  had  con- 
tracted with  a  blacksmith  to  pay  one  barley  corn  for 
the  first  nail,  two  for  the  second,  four  for  the  third, 
and  so  on,  each  succeeding  nail  to  be  paid  for  with 
twice  as  much  barley  as  the  one  before  it.  Notwith- 
standing the  enormous  amount  of  barley  which  the 
blacksmith  claimed  under  his  contract,  the  court  de- 
cided, as  anti-repudiationists  now  contend,  that  a  con- 
tract is  binding  no  matter  how  it  affects  the  parties  to 
it,  and  gave  a  ruinous  judgment  against  the  farmer 
accordingly.  The  principle  of  that  decision  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  courts  for  a  long  time,  but  at  length  a 
more  enlightened  and  honest  view  prevailed.  It  was 
seen  that  grossly  oppressive  contracts  are  unconscionable, 
and  as  matter  of  good  morals,  as  well  as  sound  policy, 
the  courts  stopped  enforcing  them.  No  one  now  would 
think  of  stigmatizing  repudiation  of  such  private  con- 
tracts as  dishonest.  The  principle  applies  as  well  to  con- 
tracts by  government.  If  they  are  unconscionable,  hon- 
esty demands  not  that  they  be  enforced,  but  that  they  be 
repudiated. 

What  would  constitute  an  unconscionable  public  con- 
tract must  depend,  of  course,  as  in  the  case  of  private 
contracts,  upon  the  circumstances — not  merely  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  the  contract  originates,  but  also  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  operates.  Though  it  be  made 
in  good  faith,  yet  if  it  operate  unconscionably  it  is  a  fit 
subject  for  repudiation. 

Without  undertaking  to  enumerate  the  kinds  of  public 
contracts  that  ought  thus  in  honesty  to  be  repudiated,  two 
may  be  suggested  by  way  of  illustration.  Public  debts 
that  extend  over  generation   after  generation,   sucking 


286         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

taxes  in  the  name  of  interest  from  people  born  long 
after  the  principal  has  been  expended  for  purposes  that 
do  not  concern  them,  clearly  belong  in  the  category  of 
repudiable  public  contracts.  The  second  example  is  fran- 
chise privileges.  Franchises  created  by  a  dead  and  buried 
generation,  by  whose  favor  and  upon  whose  authority  the 
beneficiaries  levy  tribute  upon  people  who  had  no  voice 
in  creating  the  franchises  or  in  fixing  their  duration,  may 
be  repudiated  without  dishonesty.  It  is  dishonest  not  to 
repudiate  them. 

Repudiation  is  a  sacred  right  of  the  people.  It  is 
a  right  which  must  not  be  dishonestly  exercised,  to  be 
sure;  but  likewise  it  is  a  right  which  must  not  be  dis- 
honestly neglected.  Whoever  couples  this  right  with 
breach  of  public  faith,  as  if  the  terms  were  interchange- 
able, gives  aid  and  comfort  to  the  worst  class  of  enemies 
the  people  ever  had.  So  does  he  who  invokes  it  friv- 
olously. The  right  of  repudiation  is  a  reserved  right 
which  the  people  should  learn  to  respect ;  and  one  which, 
that  it  may  command  respect,  should  never  be  identified 
in  speech  with  what  is  immoral,  or  be  invoked  for  the 
redress  of  trivial  or  doubtful  grievances.  As  the  "queen's 
arm"  of  the  old  frontiersman  hung  upon  its  pegs  above 
the  hearth,  never  taken  down  for  wanton  attack  but 
always  ready  and  effective  for  defense,  so  should  the 
reserved  right  of  repudiation  be  cherished.  It  is  the 
old  "queen's  arm"  of  a  free  people  who  are  menaced 
on  all  sides  by  aggressive  and  merciless  legalized  mo- 
nopolies. If  it  be  not  cherished,  the  freedom  of  posterity 
will  be  bargained  away,  and  the  nation's  destinies  will 
fall  under  the  sway  of  a  "dead  hand." 


CHAPTER    V 

TRIAL  BY  JURY 

ONCE  upon  a  time  a  boy  was  kidnaped  in  an  Amer- 
ican city  by  unknown  men.  They  blindfolded  him, 
put  him  in  a  carriage  which  they  drove  many  miles  now 
in  one  direction  and  now  in  another  to  confuse  him, 
imprisoned  him  in  a  house  subsequently  discovered  to 
be  in  the  suburbs  of  his  own  city,  and  finally  extorted 
from  his  father,  a  very  wealthy  man,  a  large  sum  of 
money  under  anonymous  threats  of  burning  out  the  boy's 
eyes  with  acids.  After  submitting  to  the  extortion  and 
thereby  releasing  his  son,  the  father  offered  a  rich  re- 
ward for  the  conviction  of  the  dastardly  criminals. 

Stimulated  by  that  reward  the  police  produced  a  man, 
let  us  call  him  John  Doe,  whom  they  charged  with  the 
crime.  John  Doe  was  identified  by  the  boy  as  one  of 
his  kidnapers — the  identification  being  made,  however, 
by  recognition  of  the  prisoner's  voice,  for  the  boy  had 
not  seen  either  captor.  In  due  time  the  case  was  tried. 
What  influenced  the  jury  in  arriving  at  its  verdict  no 
outsider  is  competent  to  say.  Its  members  are  reported 
to  have  suspected  detectives  of  manufacturing  a  case 
to  get  the  reward.  However  that  may  have  been,  pre- 
sumably they  weighed  all  the  facts  before  them  and  de- 
cided conscientiously.  At  any  rate  no  substantial  charge 
of  incapacity  or  corruption  was  made  against  the  jury. 
It  returned  a  verdict  of  "not  guilty." 

Now,  in  accordance  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea  of 
trial  by  jury,  that  verdict  made  a  complete  legal  deter- 

287 


288         ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

mination  of  the  matter.  In  the  eye  of  the  law  the  prisoner 
was  innocent;  and  whether  in  fact  he  was  innocent  or 
guilty,  the  judge  had  no  other  duty  to  perform  than 
to  order  his  discharge. 

If,  in  doing  that,  the  judge  took  occasion  to  reflect 
upon  the  wisdom  of  the  verdict,  he  offended  against 
judicial  decorum  quite  as  much  as  a  juror  would  have 
done  had  he,  during  the  progress  of  the  trial,  openly 
criticised  a  ruling  of  the  judge  upon  a  question  of  law. 
But  the  judge  in  this  kidnaping  case,  unmindful  of  the 
proprieties  of  the  place  and  the  occasion,  forgetting  that 
a  judge  alone  is  not  the  court,  but  that  the  jury  also  is 
part  of  it,  and  that  he  may  by  disorderly  conduct  or 
language  be  guilty  of  contempt  none  the  less  because 
there  is  no  one  to  punish  him  when  he  fails  to  hold  him- 
self in  restraint — this  judge,  officiously  and  in  manifest 
contempt  of  court,  addressed  the  following  language  to 
the  jury,  an  integral  part  of  the  court,  which,  within  its 
sphere  of  action,  namely,  authority  to  adjudge  the  facts 
in  the  case,  was  his  judicial  superior  and  entitled  to  his 
respect : 

"If  John  Doe  had  made  his  own  choice  of  a  jury  he 
could  not  have  selected  twelve  men  who  could  have 
served  him  more  faithfully.  If  the  State  had  made  the 
selection,  I  know  of  no  men  it  could  have  named  who 
could  have  been  less  careful  of  its  interests.  The  jury 
is  discharged  without  the  compliments  of  the  court,  and 
the  prisoner  is  likewise  released,  as  to  this  trial,  I  pre- 
sume to  continue  the  criminal  practice  in  which  you  have 
failed  to  check  him.  I  do  not  know  what  motive  actu- 
ated you  in  reaching  this  decision,  but  I  hope  none  of 
you  will  ever  again  appear  in  this  jury  box." 

That  insult  to  the  jury  was  worse  than  contempt  of 


TRIAL   BY  JURY  289 

court.  It  was  worse  than  a  breach  of  judicial  decorum. 
It  was  a  crime  against  democratic  government.  For 
it  was  calculated,  by  intimidating  jurors,  to  undermine 
the  independence  of  juries  and  destroy  the  integrity  of 
the  system  of  jury  trial.  And  the  worst  of  it  all  is  that 
this  instance  is  only  one  among  many  that  indicate  a 
disposition  on  the  part  of  some  judges  to  reduce  trial 
by  jury  to  an  empty  form  with  only  a  curious  historical 
meaning. 

This  disposition,  or  rather,  this  tendency,  for  it  has 
really  come  to  that,  is  so  dangerous  to  individual  liberty 
as  to  demand  some  serious  elementary  consideration  of 
the  subject  of  jury  trial. 

In  their  Anglo-Saxon  origin  juries  were  composed  of 
witnesses.  They  testified  under  oath  to  the  innocence 
or  guilt  of  the  person  accused,  whom  they  personally 
knew  and  of  whose  alleged  offense  they  had  either  personal 
or  hearsay  and  inferential  knowledge.  The  idea  was 
that  a  man's  guilt  should  be  adjudged  by  his  neighbors, 
who  might  be  presumed  to  know  all  about  him.  And 
so  by  their  testimony,  formulated  into  a  verdict,  they 
acquitted  or  convicted. 

But  in  the  course  of  time  this  idea  of  the  jury  was 
reversed  in  its  formal  aspects.  Instead  of  empanelling 
jurors  who  know  most  about  a  case,  we  now  select  those 
that  know  least.  This  is  so,  at  any  rate,  in  cities.  In 
the  country  juries  are  still  made  up  of  men  familiar  with 
the  general  setting  of  the  cases  they  try.  That  differ- 
ence would  naturally  exist,  because  jurors  are  still  drawn 
from  the  vicinity,  from  the  neighborhood,  and  in  cities 
"the  neighborhood"  may  be  an  unknown  country  to  its 
own  inhabitants,  whereas  in  the  country,  "neighborhood" 
still  has  a  meaning.     But  the  theory  that  jurors  should 


290        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

be  familiar  with  their  cases  and  render  verdicts  upon 
their  own  knowledge  of  the  facts  was  long  ago  dis- 
placed by  the  theory  now  prevailing  that  juries  should 
decide  cases,  not  upon  the  basis  of  their  own  knowledge, 
but  in  accordance  with  their  judgment  of  the  testimony 
of  witnesses  who  appear  before  them. 

In  measuring  the  value  of  trial  by  jury  it  is  custom- 
ary to  glance  down  the  line  of  this  historical  evolution 
and  draw  conclusions  solely  from  that  source.  But,  like 
all  sociological  conclusions  resting  upon  the  historical 
basis  alone,  these  are  quite  unsatisfactory.  Students  who 
adopt  them  assume  too  readily  that  historical  evolution 
is  righteous  evolution.  When,  therefore,  they  observe 
that  the  jury  has  passed  from  the  stage  of  witnesses 
to  familiar  facts,  on  to  the  stage  of  judges  of  unfamiliar 
facts,  and  observe  a  growing  general  tendency  toward 
expertism,  they  incHne  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the 
progress  of  historical  evolution,  the  jury  must,  and  be- 
cause it  must  therefore  it  ought  to,  give  way  to  judicial 
experts. 

But  this  is  not  the  true  function  of  history.  As  the 
man  who  from  being  a  moderate  drinker  had  become  a 
drunkard  would  be  a  fool  to  conclude  that  he  must,  and 
therefore  ought  to,  go  on  with  his  historical  evolution  to 
delirium  tremens  and  a  drunkard's  grave,  so  society 
would  be  guilty  of  the  greatest  folly  to  infer  that  it  must, 
and  therefore  ought  to,  keep  on  in  a  certain  direction 
merely  because  that  direction  is  historical.  The  true 
function  of  history  is  not  to  confirm  us  in  evil  courses; 
it  is  to  warn  us  away  from  them.  Though  experience 
(and  that  is  all  that  history  is)  be  a  good  teacher,  it  is 
not  necessarily  either  a  good  or  an  inevitable  master. 
Society  is,  indeed,  an  organism.     By  the  action  and  re- 


TRIAL    BY   JURY  291 

action  of  individual  minds,  from  greatest  to  least,  a 
distinct  social  force  is  generated.  But  this  force  was  not 
set  in  motion  years  ago  in  one  direction  irrevocably.  It 
is  not  fatalistic.  The  historic  impulses  are  always  sub- 
ject to  the  influence  of  present  perceptions  of  moral 
right  and  wrong.  And  these,  if  rationally  applied,  may 
divert  or  even  reverse  the  course  of  history,  instead  of 
promoting  further  evolution  along  the  old  pathway. 

With  the  question  of  jury  trial,  then,  the  real  point 
is  not  whether  it  is  historically  evolving  into  a  system 
of  trial  by  judicial  experts,  but  whether  the  people 
should  allow  it  to  so  evolve — that  is,  whether  they  should 
regard  trial  by  experts  as  right,  whether  they  should 
regard  it  as  tending  to  increase  or  diminish  individual 
liberty. 

This  making  of  individual  liberty  the  test  of  moral- 
ity, is  done  advisedly.  Who  can  conceive  of  any  test 
of  moral  right  and  wrong  more  fundamental  than  that 
of  the  relations  of  man  to  man?  Immorality  as  between 
man  and  man  consists  in  the  imposition  of  one  man's 
will  upon  another.  Conversely,  morality  consists  in  prac- 
tical recognition  of  the  complete  liberty  of  each,  limited 
only  by  the  equal  liberty  of  all.  Assuming  this  liberty 
to  be  the  desideratum,  what  relation  to  it  does  the  exist- 
ing system  of  jury  trial  bear — the  system,  that  is  to  say, 
which  makes  the  jury  the  judge  in  criminal  cases? 

In  his  treatise  on  the  American  Constitution,  Judge 
Story  described  trial  by  jury  in  criminal  cases  *  as 
"essential  to  political  and  civil  liberty."  Similar  quota- 
tions from  men  whose  names  Americans  ought  to  honor 
might  be  made.  But  the  opinion  of  any  man,  however 
wise  and  good,  is  after  all  only  an  opinion.     It  is  en- 

*Book  III,  Chapter  XXXVIII. 


292         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

titled  to  no  weight  as  authority.  It  does  not  decide. 
Such  opinions,  however,  are  entitled  to  profound  respect 
and  candid  consideration.  It  is  by  weighing  them  in  an 
earnest  search  for  essential  truth,  rather  than  by  sur- 
rendering mind  and  conscience  to  the  demands  of  his- 
torical evolution,  that  civilization  has  been  promoted. 

One  of  the  most  thoughtful  of  these  opinions  is  that 
of  Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  the  earliest  foreign  observer  of 
American  institutions.  His  opinion  derives  added  value 
from  the  fact  that  as  a  Frenchman  his  observations  of  the 
jury  system  were  uninfluenced  by  favorable  prejudice. 
He  came  to  a  consideration  of  the  subject  much  as  a 
philosophical  historian  approaches  the  consideration  of 
an  obsolete  institution.  Anglo-Saxons  might  claim  too 
much  for  this  palladium  of  their  liberties.  A  French- 
man of  the  early  part  of  the  century  could  regard  it 
with  unbiased  mind.  And  that  is  what  De  Tocqueville 
seems  to  have  done. 

He  considered  the  jury  system  only  with  reference 
to  its  political,  and  not  to  its  judicial,  influences,  since 
his  general  subject  was  not  the  judicial  but  the  political 
aspects  of  American  life.  And  this  makes  his  observa- 
tions still  more  important,  for  it  is  as  a  political  institu- 
tion that  the  jury  system  now  demands  attention  in  con- 
sequence of  the  tendency  of  judges  to  usurp  its  func- 
tions. 

De  Tocqueville  said  :* 

"To  look  upon  the  jury  as  a  mere  judicial  institution, 
is  to  confine  our  attention  to  a  very  narrow  view  of  it; 
for,  however  great  its  influence  may  be  upon  the  decisions 
of  the  law-courts,  that  influence  is  very  subordinate 
to  the  powerful  effects  which  it  produces  on  the  destinies 

*  "Democracy  in  Anverica,"  Vol.  11,  Chapter  IV. 


TRIAL   BY  JURY  293 

of  the  community  at  large.  The  jury  is  above  all  a 
political  institution,  and  it  must  be  regarded  in  this  light 
in  order  to  be  duly  appreciated. 

"By  the  jury,  I  mean  a  certain  number  of  citizens 
chosen  indiscriminately,  and  invested  with  a  temporary 
right  of  judging.  Trial  by  jury,  as  applied  to  the  re- 
pression of  crime,  appears  to  me  to  introduce  an  emi- 
nently republican  element  into  the  government,  upon  the 
following  grounds : 

"The  institution  of  the  jury  may  be  aristocratic  or 
democratic,  according  to  the  class  of  society  from  which 
the  jurors  are  selected;  but  it  always  preserves  its  repub- 
lican character,  inasmuch  as  it  places  the  real  direction 
of  society  in  the  hands  of  the  governed,  or  of  a  portion 
of  the  governed,  instead  of  leaving  it  under  the  authority 
of  the  government.  Force  is  never  more  than  a  transient 
element  of  success ;  and  after  force  comes  the  notion  of 
right.  A  government  which  should  only  be  able  to  crush 
its  enemies  upon  a  field  of  battle,  would  very  soon  be 
destroyed.  The  true  sanction  of  political  laws  is  to  be 
found  in  penal  legislation,  and  if  that  sanction  be  want- 
ing, the  law  will  sooner  or  later  lose  its  cogency.  He 
who  punishes  infractions  of  the  law,  is  therefore  the  real 
master  of  society.  Now,  the  institution  of  the  jury  raises 
the  people  itself,  or  at  least  a  class  of  citizens,  to  the 
bench  of  judicial  authority.  The  institution  of  the  jury 
consequently  invests  the  people,  or  that  class  of  citizens, 
with  the  direction  of  society. 

"In  England  the  jury  is  returned  from  the  aristocratic 
portion  of  the  nation;  the  aristocracy  makes  the  laws, 
applies  the  laws,  and  punishes  all  infractions  of  the  laws ; 
everything  is  established  upon  a  consistent  footing,  and 
England  may  with  truth  be  said  to  constitute  an  aristo- 


294        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

cratic  republic.  In  the  United  States  the  same  system 
is  applied  to  the  whole  people.  Every  American  citizen 
is  qualified  to  be  an  elector,  a  juror,  and  is  eligible  to 
office.  The  system  of  the  jury,  as  it  is  understood  in 
America,  appears  to  me  to  be  as  direct  and  as  extreme 
a  consequence  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  as  uni- 
versal suffrage.  These  institutions  are  two  instruments 
of  equal  power,  which  contribute  to  the  supremacy  of 
the  majority.  All  the  sovereigns  who  have  chosen  to 
govern  by  their  own  authority,  and  to  direct  society  in- 
stead of  obeying  its  direction,  have  destroyed  or  enfeebled 
the  institution  of  the  jury.  The  monarchs  of  the  House 
of  Tudor  sent  to  prison  jurors  who  refused  to  convict, 
and  Napoleon  caused  them  to  be  returned  by  his  agents. 
.  .  .  The  jury  is  pre-eminently  a  political  institution; 
it  must  be  regarded  as  one  form  of  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people:  when  that  sovereignty  is  repudiated,  it  must 
be  rejected;  or  it  must  be  adapted  to  the  laws  by  which 
that  sovereignty  is  established.  The  jury  is  that  portion 
of  the  nation  to  which  the  execution  of  the  laws  is  en- 
trusted, as  the  Houses  of  Parliament  constitute  that  part 
of  the  nation  which  makes  the  laws ;  and  in  order  that 
society  may  be  governed  with  consistency  and  uniformity, 
the  list  of  citizens  qualified  to  serve  on  juries  must  in- 
crease and  diminish  with  the  list  of  electors." 

These  comments  of  the  great  Frenchman  might  be 
very  much  expanded,  but  nothing  could  be  added  to 
them.  The  whole  argument  for  the  jury  system  as  a 
political  force  is  there.  And  it  admits  of  no  possible 
refutation  which  does  not  proceed  from  a  denial  of  the 
right  and  wisdom  of  government  by  the  people. 

Those  who  oppose  the  system  of  jury  trial  would  have 
accused  persons  tried  by  judges,  by  experts  in  the  law,  who 


TRIAL   BY  JURY  295 

are  skilled  in  unraveling  tangled  evidence.  And  this  is 
what  such  conduct  as  that  of  the  judge  quoted  above  tends 
to.  It  is  the  tendency  of  all  the  rebuking  of  jurymen  which 
certain  types  of  judges  indulge  in,  from  the  judge  who  of- 
ficiously probes  the  general  opinions  of  jurors  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  term,  and  dismisses  them,  sometimes  inso- 
lently, if  he  doesn't  like  their  point  of  view,  to  those  who, 
like  the  judge  already  quoted,  chastise  the  juries  that  ac- 
quit prisoners  whom  the  judge  would  have  convicted. 
Whatever  may  be  the  purpose,  the  manifest  effect  is  to  in- 
timidate jurors,  thereby  making  them  responsive  to  sig- 
nificant words  and  shoulder  shrugs  from  the  bench,  and 
constituting  the  judge  a  thirteenth  juror,  with  the  in- 
dependence, the  intelligence  and  the  conscience  of  the 
other  twelve  wrapped  in  the  folds  of  his  silken  gown. 
The  tendency  of  this  reprehensible  course  of  action  is  to 
reduce  the  jury  system  to  a  barren  formality,  and  for 
juries  drawn  from  the  people  to  substitute  an  autocratic 
bench  of  experts. 

There  is  about  the  idea  of  trial  by  experts  something 
extremely  plausible.  It  is  suggestive  of  getting  a  shoe- 
maker to  make  your  shoes,  a  watchmaker  to  mend  your 
timepiece,  or  a  farmer  to  raise  your  grain.  Why  not 
a  judge  to  try  your  criminals? 

But  the  analogy  doesn't  hold.  Men  learned  in  the 
law  and  skillful  in  twisting  and  turning  through  the 
mazes  of  legal  principles  and  conflicting  testimony  are 
no  more  expert  than  laymen  at  drawing  common-sense 
conclusions.  A  New  York  judge  who  was  short  of  a 
jury  panel,  once  drew  a  panel  from  the  bystanders,  all 
lawyers — all  experts.  This  was  by  common  consent,  of 
course,  the  lawyers  acquiescing  for  the  sensation  of  the 
thing.     But  that  jury  disagreed!    Decisions  of  questions 


296         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

of  fact  by  judges,  even  when  there  is  only  one  judge  and 
consequently  no  disagreement,  are  no  more  satisfactory 
than  verdicts  by  juries.  On  the  whole  they  may  be  said 
to  be  less  so  And  as  to  medical  experts,  is  not  the  com- 
munity justly  tired  of  their  jarring  opinions?  The 
truth  is  that  there  is  something  unbalancing  about  the 
minuteness  of  expert  knowledge  when  brought  into  com- 
mon or  general  relationships. 

So  far  as  the  judicial  function  is  concerned,  no  better 
way  of  deciding  questions  of  fact  has  been  discovered 
than  that  of  trial  by  jury.  Under  this  system  the  expert 
is  put  in  his  proper  place.  If  a  mechanical  question  is 
involved,  experts  inform  the  jury  as  to  the  mechanical 
technicalities  necessary  for  it  to  know.  If  a  chemical 
question,  chemists  perform  that  office.  So  with  the  whole 
range  of  technical  knowledge,  including  the  law  of  the 
case,  about  which  the  jury  is  advised  by  the  legal  experts 
on  the  bench.  When  thus  informed  and  in  possession 
of  the  facts  in  the  case,  the  chances  are  vastly  greater 
that  a  jury  of  twelve  intelligent  men  will  marshal  those 
facts  in  a  common-sense  way  and  reach  a  just  conclusion 
than  that  any  of  the  experts  would. 

Juries  are  sometimes  corrupt  and  they  sometimes  make 
mistakes.  But  the  innocent  prisoner  has  better  guaran- 
tees of  acquittal  at  the  hands  of  a  jury,  than  at  the  hands 
of  a  judge  expert  in  the  work  of  "railroading"  criminals; 
and  the  guilty  man  has  but  little  better  chance  of  escape. 
Though  juries  do  make  mistakes  in  deciding  questions 
of  fact,  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  they  make  as  many 
as  it  appears  from  the  law  reports  that  judges  make  in 
deciding  questions  of  law ;  and  though  they  be  occa- 
sionally corrupt,  neither  are  judges  always  immaculate. 
There  are  few  lawyers  of  large  experience  who  will  not 


TRIAL   BY   JURY  297 

concede  that  as  a  rule,  even  when  juries  seem  to  be  mis- 
taken, they  get  at  substantial  justice. 

But  the  judicial  function  of  juries  is  not  the  important 
one.  As  De  Tocqueville  says,  the  jury's  function  as  a 
judge  in  particular  cases  is  subordinate  to  its  function 
as  a  political  institution.  In  the  nature  of  things  in 
criminal  cases,  if  the  jury  decides  at  all,  it  must  decide 
both  fact  and  law.  Legal  experts  may  advise,  but  the 
jury  must  decide.  So  long,  therefore,  as  the  independ- 
ence of  the  jury  can  be  preserved,  individual  liberty  can- 
not be  quite  destroyed.  All  other  free  institutions  might 
go,  even  the  suffrage  might  be  restricted  to  the  very  rich 
or  the  highly  educated,  yet,  if  the  penal  law  were  ad- 
ministered by  independent  juries  drawn  from  the  body 
of  the  people,  the  grosser  forms  of  tyranny  would  still 
be  held  in  check. 

That  explains  the  tendency  to  minimize  the  function  of 
juries.  With  the  jury  system  out  of  the  way  or  become 
a  mere  form,  and  experts  invested  with  power  to  punish 
infractions  of  the  law,  our  government  would  go  on 
developing  into  a  government  by  experts  until  it  had 
reached  the  inevitable  climax,  government  by  a  single 
expert  born  to  his  place  and  specially  educated  to  his 
function — the  government  of  a  czar. 

Whoever  will  stop  this  tendency  will  be  a  benefactor. 
Some  exceptionally  courageous  juror  may  yet  volunteer 
for  that  duty.  If,  when  a  judge  in  some  other  case 
berates  the  jury  after  the  manner  of  the  judge  in  the 
kidnaping  case,  a  member  of  the  jury  will  rebuke  him, 
that  juror  will  have  performed  a  most  valuable  public 
service.  It  should  not  be  done  pertly,  nor  lightly,  nor 
rashly ;  but  in  self-respectful  manner,  seriously,  earnestly, 
decisively,  and  with  confidence  in  his  rights  as  a  juror 


298         ETHICS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  consciousness  of  his  imperative  duty  as  a  citizen  of 
asserting  those  rights. 

Such  a  protest  might  call  out  an  apology  from  the 
bench,  for  doubtless  many  judges  offend  in  this  way 
thoughtlessly,  and  that  apology  would  not  be  without 
beneficial  influence.  At  the  worst,  the  protest  could  only 
provoke  proceedings  for  contempt  of  court,  and  in  those 
proceedings  the  juror's  contempt  in  protesting  against 
judicial  outrage  would  be  a  minor  issue  in  comparison 
with  the  judge's  contempt  in  disturbing  the  course  of 
justice  in  his  court  by  intimidating  jurors. 

Unless  jurors  do  assert  themselves  by  insisting  upon 
a  due  recognition  from  the  bench  of  their  rights  and 
dignity,  the  process  of  reducing  juries  to  a  place  in  which 
they  will  perfunctorily  record  the  decisions  of  judges 
will  go  on  apace;  and  judges,  having  usurped  the  func- 
tions of  juries,  will  become  the  real  masters  of  society. 


CHAPTER  VI 

IMPERIALISM 

WHEN  Rome  passed  from  republic  to  empire  the 
name  of  king  had  the  detested  significance  in  the 
Roman  mind  that  both  king  and  emperor  have  now  in 
the  American.  Frankly  to  have  proposed  a  king  would 
have  been  as  fatal  to  Roman  imperialism  then,  as  frankly 
to  propose  an  emperor  would  be  to  American  imperial- 
ism now.  To  thrice  refuse  the  kingly  crown,  whether 
sincerely  or  not,  was  the  best  of  Roman  politics.  Yet  the 
Roman  republic  was  strangled  by  the  Roman  empire,  and 
there  was  no  king.  The  title  of  "imperator,"  which  the 
Caesars  adopted,  was  but  a  common  expression  of  repub- 
lican authority,  as  innocent  in  Roman  thought  as  "man- 
ager" is  in  American  thought. 

Nor  could  any  one  at  that  time  have  told  where  and 
when  the  republic  ended  and  the  empire  began.  The 
transition  was  effected  by  a  series  of  departures  from 
old  standards  and  old  ideals,  each  of  which  commended 
itself  to  superficial  observation  as  being  in  the  interest 
of  the  republic.  No  imperial  policy  was  deliberately 
proposed.  Probably  none  was  dreamed  of  even  by  the 
Roman  imperialists  themselves.  But  more  or  less  un- 
consciously they  'turned  the  current  of  events  toward 
imperialism.  We  know  how  the  current  of  a  great  river 
in  the  bottoms  may  be  turned  by  small  cuttings  into  the 
bank  at  a  bend.  The  analogy  holds  true  to  Roman 
history.  In  times  of  stress  masterful  ambitions  prevailed 
in  the  settlement  of  temporary  issues,  until  at  last  an 

299 


300        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

imperial  current  had  broken  through  the  republican  banks 
at  a  bend  and  torn  out  a  channel  for  itself.  There  was 
no  conscious  setting  up  of  an  empire  to  take  the  place 
of  the  republic,  but  the  empire  came. 

It  is  always  so.  When  a  people  are  about  to  pass 
from  freedom  to  tyranny,  nobody  shouts  from  the  house- 
tops: "Hurrah,  boys!  Let's  change  our  freedom  for 
tyranny!"  Probably  nobody  desires  the  change,  and 
only  a  few  suspect  the  tendency.  What  happens  is 
this:  Things  that  really  make  for  tyranny,  but  which 
are  supposed  to  be  desirable  in  themselves,  are  done  re- 
gardless of  what  they  may  lead  on  to ;  and  one  step  fol- 
lowing another  the  time  comes  when  succeeding  genera- 
tions are  awakened  by  sore  experience  to  the  fact  that 
the  freedom  their  fathers  had  is  gone.  "The  greatest 
changes,"  says  James  Bryce,  "are  often  those  introduced 
with  the  least  notion  of  their  consequence,  and  the  most 
fatal  those  which  encounter  least  resistance." 

The  history  of  republics  furnishes  a  never-failing  ad- 
monition to  us  that  our  republic  may  pass  into  empire 
without  exciting  alarm  by  any  of  those  outward  indica- 
tions with  which  securely  established  empires  advertise 
their  power.  The  price  of  liberty  is  now,  as  it  always 
has  been  and  always  must  be,  eternal  vigilance. 

The  essential  characteristic  of  empire,  in  the  objection- 
able sense  of  the  term,  is  absolutism.  Whether  or  not  ab- 
solute power  be  administered  benevolently,  makes  no  dif- 
ference. The  evil  is  in  the  power  itself ;  not  in  the  nature 
or  manner  of  its  administration.  Benevolent  absolutism  is, 
indeed,  the  most  fruitful  seed  of  tyranny.  Let  absolutism 
begin  malignantly,  and  a  people  accustomed  to  free- 
dom recognize  it  for  what  it  is,  and  rising  up  in  their 
might  put  it  down.     But  let  it  begin  benevolently,  and 


IMPERIALISM  301 

by  the  time  the  people  see  and  feel  the  tyranny  which  is 
as  natural  to  every  species  of  absolutism  as  poison  to 
a  poison  vine,  they  are  powerless  to  resist  its  aggressions. 
The  little  finger  of  a  small  standing  army  is  then  stronger 
than  the  loins  of  the  unorganized  masses. 

Neither  is  it  important  whether  absolute  power  be 
centered  in  one  man  or  in  several.  An  empire  ruled  by 
an  emperor,  a  Caesar,  a  king,  a  boss,  a  czar,  a  sultan, 
or  whatever  other  title  he  may  adopt,  is  not  more  intol- 
erable than  one  ruled  by  an  oligarchy.  The  true  dis- 
tinction, the  only  test  distinction,  turns  not  upon  the 
number  of  despots  or  their  benevolence,  but  upon  the 
question  of  self-government  or  superimposed  govern- 
ment. Whatever  may  be  the  titles  of  its  administrators, 
the  government  that  is  at  all  times  responsible  to  the 
people  governed  is  a  free  government,  while  the  govern- 
ment that  governs  without  responsibility  to  the  governed 
is  imperial. 

What  made  Rome  a  terrible  empire  was,  at  first,  not 
despotism  at  home.  So  far  as  the  heavy  hand  of  tyran- 
nical government  concerned  him,  the  Roman  citizen  was 
long  as  free  under  the  empire  as  under  the  republic. 
As  between  citizens,  there  was  under  the  empire  a  strict 
observance  of  justice,  and  for  the  protection  of  Roman 
citizens  abroad  the  whole  power  of  the  empire  was  on 
call.  But  there  was  utter  contempt  for  the  rights  of 
other  peoples. 

Long  before  she  was  known  as  an  empire,  while  repub- 
lican forms  were  unaltered  and  the  republican  spirit 
still  seemed  vital,  Rome  had  set  out  to  be  a  world  power. 
In  this  ambition  for  universal  dominion  she  succeeded; 
and  as  her  sway  extended  she  established  colonies.  They 
were  of  two  sorts,  "senatorial"  and  "imperatorial."    The 


302         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

latter  were  governed  absolutely  from  Rome,  being  col- 
onies in  which  the  "inferior"  and  subjugated  peoples 
would  have  been  dominant  but  for  the  armies  of  the 
empire  that  were  quartered  upon  them ;  and  though  the 
former  were  self-governing  to  a  degree,  that  was  because, 
through  Roman  immigration  and  other  influences,  they 
had  become  submissive  to  the  mistress  whose  decrees  went 
forth  from  the  banks  of  the  Tiber.  Superimposing  her 
imperial  government  upon  all,  Rome  held  no  relation 
of  responsibility  whatever  to  the  governed  in  her  colonies. 
From  that  moment,  says  Froude,*  the  days  of  her  own 
self-government  were  numbered ;  and  he  points  this  moral 
for  all  time:  "If  there  be  one  lesson,"  he  writes, f  "which 
history  clearly  teaches,  it  is  this,  that  free  nations  cannot 
govern  subject  provinces.  If  they  are  unable  or  unwilling 
to  admit  their  dependencies  to  share  their  own  constitu- 
tion, the  constitution  itself  will  fall  in  pieces  from  mere 
incompetence  for  its  duties." 

England  has  in  modern  times  followed  the  ancient 
Roman  example.  Like  Rome,  she  protects  her  citizens 
abroad  with  the  ferocity  of  a  she-bear  defending  her  lit- 
ter of  cubs.  But  "inferior"  peoples  have  no  rights,  as 
peoples,  that  she  feels  bound  to  respect.  Again  like 
Rome,  she  aspires  to  rule  the  world.  In  this  she  has 
been  more  successful  than  any  other  modern  nation. 
Around  the  globe  her  drums  alone  beat  a  continuous 
reveille.  And  in  imitation  of  Rome  she  has  subjugated 
"inferior"  peoples  and  attached  them  to  her  empire  as 
colonies.  Where  the  "inferior"  peoples  are  in  the  as- 
cendant her  colonies  are  "crown"  colonies,  which  cor- 
respond to  the  "imperatorial"  colonies  of  Rome;  but  as 

*  Froude's  "Caesar,"  Ch.  XIII. 
•j-Froude's  "Caesar,"  Ch.  I. 


IMPERIALISM  303 

the  superior  Anglo-Saxon  immigrant  secures  dominion 
over  the  natives,  privileges  of  self-government  are  ex- 
tended and  the  colonies  rise  to  the  dignity  of  what  Rome 
knew  as  colonies  of  the  "senatorial"  class. 

Some  of  these  have  been  granted  a  certain  power  of 
self-government  which  precludes  England  from  holding 
them  to  her  empire  by  arbitrary  ties.  Their  loyalty  to 
the  mother  country  is  no  longer  secured  by  imperial 
power  emanating  from  Westminster;  it  is  an  imperial 
sentiment  fostered  within  the  colonies  themselves — within 
the  nations  rather,  for  in  all  but  name  and  international 
recognition  the  combined  Provinces  of  the  Canadian  Do- 
minion and  the  federated  States  of  the  Australian  Com- 
monwealth are  independent  units  in  the  category  of 
Anglo-Saxon  sovereignties.  They  are  essentially  less 
the  colonial  dependencies  of  England  than  her  military 
allies. 

And  it  might  almost  be  said  that  our  own  federal 
republic  is  becoming  part  of  this  allied  group.  It  is  at 
any  rate  following  England's  lead.  Once  a  collection  of 
British  colonies,  it  made  a  successful  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence, but  after  more  than  a  century  of  bitterness 
toward  Great  Britain  it  has  latterly  been  falling  into  line 
with  her  for  an  epoch  of  Anglo-Saxon  empire. 

That  is  the  outward  form  that  American  imperialism 
assumes.  With  an  international  "understanding  between 
statesmen,"  as  a  distinguished  British  cabinet  minister 
approvingly  phrased  it,  the  American  republic  has  been 
projected  upon  the  same  career  of  colonial  empire  that 
Great  Britain  copied  from  Rome.  Receding  from  her 
traditional  policy  of  government  by  consent,  she  is  follow- 
ing the  British  lead  and  developing  systems  of  colonial 
government  without  responsibility  to  the  governed. 


304        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

Looking  backward,  we  can  identify  the  beginning  of 
this  career  of  colonial  imperialism  with  the  American 
naval  victory  in  Manila  Bay.  That  event  generated  a 
dangerous  ambition,  the  first  published  indication  of 
which  was  authorized  by  the  close  personal  friend  and 
political  confidant  of  President  McKinley,  only  a  few 
days  after  the  Manila  Bay  battle.    He  said  :* 

"The  President  realizes,  as  we  all  realize,  that  the  prob- 
lem presented  by  the  capture  of  the  Philippines  is  the  most 
important  and  most  serious  that  confronts  the  admin- 
istration and  the  country.  To  say  what  we  will  do  is 
impossible  at  this  time,  but  this  much  has  been  deter- 
mined upon.  We  will  take  possession  of  the  islands  first, 
and  discuss  the  disposition  of  them  afterwards.  Some 
sentimentalists  seem  imbued  with  the  idea  that  we  are 
going  to  give  the  islands  back  to  Spain.  It  seems  there 
is  no  probability  of  that.  To  retain  them  will,  as  the 
English  newspapers  have  pointed  out,  necessitate  a 
departure  from  the  traditions  of  our  government.  Of 
course  such  a  step  is  not  to  be  taken  hastily.  In  cursory 
talk  among  Republican  leaders  I  find  that  there  seems 
to  be  very  little  opposition,  except  on  the  idea  that  some 
day  our  system  of  Statehood  might  be  extended  to  these 
outlying  territories.  I  think  nobody  has  any  idea  of 
doing  that.  When  the  time  comes  our  policy  will  be 
made  clear,  to  the  effect  that  Statehood  is  to  be  restricted 
to  the  present  limits  of  our  nation,  and  is  not  to  be 
extended  to  territory  separated  from  the  country,  even 
when  it  is  so  close  as  Cuba.  All  these  details  can  be 
settled  when  the  time  comes.  It  seems  to  me,  and  must 
be  clear  to  everybody,  that  the  United  States  are  entering 

♦Interview  with  Senator  Marcus  A.  Hanna,  published  in  the 
Washington  correspondence  of  the  Manchester  (England)  Guar- 
dian of  Wednesday,  May  11,  1898. 


IMPERIALISM  305 

upon  one  of  the  most  important  crises  of  their  exist- 
ence." 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  events  those  words  indicate 
either  that  imperial  plans  had  already  been  roughly  for- 
mulated, or  that  their  author  was  a  remarkable  prophet. 
For  this  republic,  following  the  example  of  Rome  and 
Great  Britain,  has  ever  since  been  superimposing  gov- 
ernment upon  "inferior"  peoples;  ostensibly  for  their 
own  good,  incidentally  it  may  be  for  ours;  but  clearly 
against  their  will.  This  is  the  essence  of  empire,  and 
its  significance  has  been  recognized  and  welcomed  in  high 
scholastic  as  well  as  political  and  commercial  quarters. 
A  famous  American  college  professor  and  author*  has 
coupled  the  hostile  ideas  of  republic  and  empire,  and 
declared  them  harmonious.  Had  he  written  in  Lin- 
coln's day  he  would  probably  have  foreseen  none  of  the 
dangers  Lincoln  feared  from  a  nation  half  free  and  half 
slave,  for  he  has  no  fear  for  a  nation  half  republic  and 
half  empire.  In  fact,  he  regards  imperialism  for  America 
as  inevitable,  and  opposition  to  it  as  "probably  as  futile 
as  opposition  to  the  trade  wind  or  the  storm."  It  is  not 
with  concern  that  he  says  this.  He  puts  it  forward  as  a 
reason  for  falling  into  Hne.  His  philosophy,  in  other 
words,  is  simply  an  elaboration  of  tfie  fatalistic  epigram 
that  "Destiny  determines  duty."  Believing  it  to  be  the 
destiny  of  our  country  to  become  a  republic  and  an  em- 
pire, he  regards  it  as  our  duty  to  promote  imperial  policies. 

This  idea  that  destiny  determines  duty  is  not  only 
fatalistic,  it  is  atheistic.  That  is  not  to  say  that  those  who 
adopt  it  are  atheists  by  intention  or  profession.  They 
may  attend  church  services  with  the  regularity  of  deacons, 

♦Franklin  H.  Giddings,  in  "Democracy  and  Empire."  Mac- 
millan. 


3o6         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

or  adore  pietistic  fetishes  with  the  devotion  of  pagans. 
They  may  even  be  profoundly  religious  in  personal  life. 
But  their  social  philosophy  is  nevertheless  the  philosophy 
of  atheism.  The  hypothesis  which  makes  destiny  the 
standard  of  duty  assumes  that  precisely  such  blind  forces 
as  wind  and  storm  hold  sovereign  sway  in  social  life.  It 
entirely  ignores  the  moral  forces  which  are  as  capable 
of  checking  or  diverting  evil  tendencies  in  society,  as  in- 
tellectual forces  are  of  avoiding  the  dangers  of  the  storm 
and  making  the  wind  an  agency  of  service  instead  of 
destruction. 

That  there  is  a  tendency  to  evil  in  the  social  world  is 
true.  Consequently  there  may  be  a  tendency  to  imperi- 
alism. But  that  evil  tendencies  in  society  cannot  be 
resisted  or  diverted  by  moral  agencies  and  influences  is 
not  true.  All  evil  tendencies  in  society  are  results  of  the 
influence  upon  it  of  evil  choices  made  by  individuals ; 
and  they  may  be  diverted  or  subdued  by  the  counteract- 
ing influence  of  righteous  choices  by  individuals.  It  is 
thus  within  the  power  of  every  one  to  affect  in  some 
degree  the  trend  of  social  development.  According  as  he 
decides  for  or  against  the  right,  whenever  his  community 
comes  to  judgment  upon  a  moral  issue,  so  does  he  help 
to  make  its  future.  These  decisions  are  the  determining 
factors  of  history. 

It  is  not  a  "good  God,  bad  devil"  world,  this  in  which 
we  live.  There  is  no  duality  of  person  or  force — good 
and  bad — in  eternal  conflict.  Neither  is  there  a  solitary 
beneficent  person  or  force  that  instigates  evil  in  order  to 
produce  good.  This  great  conflict  between  good  and 
evil  in  which  we  are  floundering,  is  an  unavoidable  prod- 
uct of  the  individual  faculty  of  choosing  between  good  and 
evil — between  the  moral  affirmative  and  the  moral  nega- 


IMPERIALISM  307 

live,  between  moral  harmony  and  moral  discord — with 
which  man  is  endowed,  and  without  which  he  could  not 
be  man.  Out  of  that  struggle  so  produced  comes  the 
great  social  force  or  tendency  in  social  life  which  we  rec- 
ognize as  evil  and  personify  as  the  devil.  Its  develop- 
ment may  be  readily  observed  by  following  in  thought 
the  story  of  a  human  life. 

Men  at  birth  are  wholly  selfish.  They  care  for  nothing 
but  self-gratification.  With  advancing  maturity,  this 
absorbing  self-love  gives  way  in  greater  or  less  degree 
to  what  in  appearance  if  not  in  fact  is  love  for  others. 
The  grown  man,  unlike  the  suckling  babe  or  the  toddling 
child,  considers  in  some  measure  the  comfort  of  his 
fellows  even  at  the  cost  of  discomfort  to  himself.  He 
may  do  so  merely  because  experience  has  taught  him  the 
wisdom,  as  matter  of  pure  selfishness,  of  taking  others 
into  account ;  or  he  may  do  it  because  the  inspiration  of 
love  has  touched  his  heart  and  opened  his  understanding 
to  a  realization  of  the  beneficent  law  of  moral  righteous- 
ness, which  is  so  superbly  phrased  in  the  golden  rule. 
But  whichever  may  be  his  motive,  selfishness  will  not  be 
wholly  expelled  from  his  nature.  In  the  one  case  it 
will  not  be  even  modified.  Whoever  is  altruistic  merely 
because  experience  or  observation  has  taught  him  that 
it  pays,  is  essentially  as  selfish  as  an  Ishmaelite.  In  the 
other  case,  selfishness  remains  in  degree.  No  man  ever 
becomes  so  completely  at  one  with  justice,  so  perfectly 
in  harmony  with  moral  law,  as  to  escape  a  daily  battle 
between  his  righteous  purposes  and  his  selfish  inclina- 
tions. There  are,  therefore,  innumerable  individual 
decisions  against  social  righteousness. 

In  consequence  of  these  individual  decisions,  there  is 
an  evil  force  in  the  social  world.     It  consists  in  the  spon- 


3o8         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

taneous  cooperation  of  individual  selfishnesses.  This  is 
the  force  that  makes  for  imperialism  in  all  its  forms.  It 
is  the  force  that  supports  aristocracy,  plutocracy,  oligar- 
chies, monopolies  and  boss-ships.  It  is  the  force  that 
maintains  militarism  and  monopolies,  and  every  other 
mode  of  selfish  mastery  by  man  over  man.  It  is  the 
force  that  once  degraded  Rome  from  repubfic  to  empire 
and  brought  on  the  Dark  Ages,  and  that  threatens  now 
to  make  history  repeat  itself  with  the  American  repubhc 
in  the  place  of  the  Roman.  And  this  is  the  force  which 
fatalists  regard  as  inevitable  and  irresistible. 

It  is,  indeed,  inevitable.  But  it  is  not  irresistible.  In 
so  far  as  individual  men,  in  their  social  or  public  rela- 
tions, choose  the  right  for  its  own  sake,  evil  social  forces 
are  resisted.  When  those  forces  prevail,  it  is  because  the 
social  conscience  is  weak.  Slavery  cannot  live  a  minute 
in  a  community  where  the  dominant  sentiment  is  truly 
vitalized  by  the  spirit  of  human  liberty.  Imperialism 
could  not  raise  its  head  if  public  opinion  were  inspired  by 
the  golden  rule.  Militarism  would  be  an  abhorrent 
spectre  if  the  common  conscience  held  human  life  sacred. 
Against  devotion  to  the  right  because  it  is  right,  evil 
tendencies  in  society  are  impotent.  And  so  tremendous 
is  the  expansive  power  of  this  righteous  force  that  even 
a  little  of  it  accomplishes  mighty  things.  The  righteous- 
ness of  only  ten  righteous  men  would  have  saved 
Gomorrah  from  destruction. 

In  contrast  with  the  fatalistic  philosophy  of  atheism, 
and  its  deadly  maxim  that  "destiny  determines  duty," 
how  infinitely  exalted  are  the  Christian  standards  of  jus- 
tice and  their  democratic  corollaries.  Tried  by  those 
tests,  all  imperialistic  policies  must  be  put  aside. 

By  every  principle  of  Christian  government,  it  is  a 


IMPERIALISM  309 

wicked  assumption  for  any  nation  or  any  race  to  claim 
to  have  a  commission  to  superimpose  its  authority  upon 
"inferiors,"  for  the  regulation  of  their  domestic  affairs. 
This  assumption  derives  all  the  plausibility  it  has  from 
the  fact  that  the  self-styled  "superior"  peoples  have  supe- 
rior force,  and  from  nothing  else.  We  are  able  to  super- 
impose our  authority  upon  "inferior"  peoples,  not  because 
we  are  superior  in  any  of  the  things  that  go  to  make  men 
morally  better  or  socially  more  useful,  but  solely  because 
we  are  superior  in  the  manipulation  of  coercive  agencies. 
We  are  better  than  they  "because  we  can  lick  *em,"  as  a 
rough  and  ready  imperialist  has  put  it.  Reduced  to  its 
last  analysis,  then,  the  pretense  that  superior  peoples  have 
the  moral  right  to  superimpose  their  authority  upon  infe- 
rior peoples  is  a  mere  euphemism  for  the  brutal  proposi- 
tion that  the  stronger  have  the  moral  right  to  subjugate 
the  weaker. 

That  proposition  is  no  truer  of  peoples  than  of  indi- 
viduals. If  "superior"  peoples  have  the  right  to  govern 
"inferior"  peoples,  then  it  must  be  that  "superior"  indi- 
viduals have  the  right  to  govern  "inferior"  individuals. 
And  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  the  ultimate  test  of 
superiority  must  be  superiority  of  physical  power. 
Imperialists  are  entitled  to  full  credit  for  consistency  on 
this  point.  They  do  maintain,  with  more  or  less  caution 
according  to  circumstances  and  their  own  disposition  to 
be  discreet,  that  the  "inferior"  members  of  a  community 
should  be  governed  by  the  "superior."  This  is  what 
imperialism  logically  leads  to.  We  cannot  build  up  a 
system  of  imperialism  for  "inferior"  peoples  in  colonies 
abroad,  without  sooner  or  later  allowing  our  traditions 
of  equal  rights  to  be  pulled  down  at  home. 

This  notion  that  the  "better"  classes  should  govern,  will 


3IO 


ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 


not  bear  the  slightest  investigation.  "Governmept  by 
the  best"  has  a  seductive  sound,  but  there  is  no  substance 
to  the  conception.  There  is  no  way  of  picking  out  the 
best. 

Education  is  not  a  test.  Some  of  the  best  educated 
men  are  the  most  accomplished  knaves,  and  others  are 
the  most  consummate  fools. 

Property  is  no  test.  All  have  heard  Franklin's  story 
of  the  man  who,  having  been  allowed  to  vote  at  one 
election  because  he  owned  a  jackass  equal  in  value  to  the 
property  qualification,  but  being  denied  the  right  at  the 
next  election  because  his  "property  qualification"  had 
meanwhile  died,  innocently  asked  which  had  really  voted 
the  first  time,  himself  or  the  jackass.  This  old-time  anec- 
dote unmasks  the  absurdity  of  property  qualifications. 

There  might  be  a  society,  to  be  sure,  in  which  property 
qualifications  would  afford  a  reasonable  test  of  special  fit- 
ness to  participate  in  government.  If  everybody's  wealth 
were  the  measure  of  his  usefulness — if,  that  is,  he  could 
accumulate  only  in  proportion  to  what  he  earned — his 
wealth  would  be  some  sort  of  index  to  the  degree  of  his 
intelligence,  sanity,  civic  loyalty,  thrift,  and  so  on.  But 
we  have  no  such  society.  The  amount  of  a  man's  wealth 
to-day  is  as  a  rule  an  index  only  to  his  degree  of  cupidity, 
and  to  his  shrewdness  in  playing  in  a  predatory  game. 

Similar  objections  apply  to  every  other  test.  To  deter- 
mine who  shall  administer  government,  only  two  effective 
ways  can  be  conceived.  One  is  to  leave  the  decision  to 
the  governed ;  the  other  is  to  resort  to  force.  "Govern- 
ment by  the  best,"  as  distinguished  from  government  by 
the  governed,  is  nothing  when  examined  but  a  discreetly 
phrased  synonym  for  government  by  the  strongest.  It 
is  the  same  idea  with  reference  to  local  government  as  is 


IMPERIALISM  311 

imperialism  with  reference  to  colonial  government.  And 
to  a  realization  of  this  idea  the  American  people  will 
surely  come  if  they  allow  the  current  of  imperialistic 
tendencies  to  get  beyond  their  control. 

Any  discussion  of  imperialistic  tendencies  would  be 
incomplete  without  some  reference  to  the  influence  in 
promoting  them  of  the  belief  that  by  this  means  civiliza- 
tion is  spread  over  the  world.  That  the  feeling  that 
imperialism,  conquest,  subjugation,  or  by  whatever  term 
one  may  choose  to  distinguish  the  policy  of  government 
of  "inferior"  by  "superior"  peoples,  does  extend  civiliza- 
tion contributes  largely  to  its  acceptance,  we  may  be  well 
assured.  Nor  need  we  doubt  that  in  this  feeling  there  is 
the  germ  of  a  true  concept  of  progress.  Then  why  op- 
pose imperialism?  Why  not  encourage  the  extension 
of  superior  civilization,  even  by  means  of  conquest  and 
slaughter  ? 

If  for  no  other  reason,  for  the  simple  one  that  all  the 
possible  benefits  of  imperialism  in  this  and  every  other 
respect  can  be  secured  in  greater  degree  without  it.  The 
great  promoter  of  true  civilization  is  not  military  con- 
quest, nor  conquest  of  any  other  kind  by  means  of  force. 
The  great  promoter  of  civilization  is  trade.  Not  the 
trade  that  is  said  to  follow  the  flag.  Not  the  trade  that 
consists  in  exporting  without  importing.  Not  any  kind 
of  strangulated  trade.     But  free  trade. 

Left  to  itself,  in  obedience  to  a  natural  law  as  obvious 
and  persistent  as  it  is  beneficent,  trade  penetrates  from 
every  center  into  every  nook  and  corner  and  cranny  of 
the  inhabited  globe.  As  it  extends,  it  carries  with  it  a 
knowledge  of  the  best  customs  and  the  best  ideals,  as 
well  as  the  best  goods,  that  the  world  has  to  oflFer  the 
world.     And  with  knowledge  of  what  is  best,  comes  vol- 


312         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

untary  selection  of  the  best.  Thus  the  best  in  all  things 
conquers  peacefully,  when  trade  is  free  to  stimulate  peace- 
ful intercourse  and  exchange. 

But  this  natural  and  peaceful  and  serviceable  conquest 
of  inferiors  by  superiors  is  artfully  checked.  With 
deceptive  phrases  about  protecting  trade,  trade  is  ob- 
structed. Nor  are  the  "inferior"  peoples  the  great  sinners 
in  this  particular.  They  always  give  the  warmest  wel- 
come to  foreigners  until  they  find  that  foreigners  are  bent 
upon  plunder.  China,  for  instance,  did  not  shut  herself 
in  commercially  for  commercial  reasons.  It  was  because 
the  civilized  barbarian  began  to  lord  it  over  her.  We 
must  turn  for  the  worst  attacks  upon  freedom  of  trade,  to 
the  statutes  of  civilized  countries,  including  our  own. 
The  extent  to  which  the  spread  of  civilization  is  prevented 
by  the  deliberate  policies  for  checking  trade,  can  only  be 
conjectured.  But  it  is  certain  that  if  conquest,  subjuga- 
tion, imperialism,  contribute  at  all  to  the  spread  of  civili- 
zation, they  do  so  only  in  so  far  as  they  break  down  the 
barriers  to  trade  that  our  barbarous  protection  policies 
set  up. 

Let  us  drop  our  policy  of  obstructing  trade,  let  us  make 
bargaining  as  free  as  breathing,  let  us  hold  out  this  policy 
as  an  example  of  civilized  ideals — let  us  do  these  things, 
and  long  before  imperialism  could  slaughter  enough 
crown  colony  natives  to  make  the  survivors  tract- 
able, peaceful  trade  would  carry  what  is  best  in  our  civ- 
ilization to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth ;  and,  what 
might  prove  to  be  of  more  moment,  would  bring  to  us 
what  is  best  in  civilizations  that  we  in  our  ignorant  pride 
hold  in  contempt  as  "inferior." 

By  this  means,  too,  we  should  make  alliances  for  peace 
instead  of  alliances  for  war. 


IMPERIALISM  313 

There  have  been  dreams  of  annexing  Canada  to  the 
United  States.  But  Canada  could  be  more  firmly  annexed 
by  free  trade  than  by  political  bonds.  It  is  not  the  polit- 
ical federation  of  our  States  that  benefits  them  as  units  in 
the  American  Union;  it  is  the  free  trade  which  that 
Union  maintains  between  them.  Abolish  our  domestic 
trade  freedom,  and  there  would  be  chaos  here  though 
the  political  union  were  preserved.  Abolish  the  political 
union  but  preserve  the  trade  freedom,  and  we  should 
hardly  be  conscious  of  the  change.  Free  trade  between 
the  States  is  the  real  substance  of  the  American  Union. 
This  is  the  alliance  that  makes  the  States  one. 

It  is  the  kind  of  alliance  that  would  unite  us  to  Canada, 
to  Australia,  to  New  Zealand,  to  Great  Britain,  to  Asia,  to 
Africa,  to  all  the  civilized  and  all  the  uncivilized  peoples  of 
the  world,  in  bonds  of  perpetual  friendship  and  mutual 
service.  It  would  not  require  political  annexation.  It 
would  not  require  subjugation.  It  would  not  require 
even  treaties.  Nothing  is  necessary  but  to  abolish  the 
trade  barriers  which  we  ourselves  have  erected  and  main- 
tain. If  we  abolished  ours,  other  nations  could  not  long 
maintain  theirs. 

It  is  highly  significant  that  this  normal  method  of  ex- 
tending civilization,  this  Christian  kind  of  alliance,  finds 
no  favor  with  imperialists.  The  more  ardent  they  are  for 
extending  trade  at  the  point  of  the  sword,  the  more  deter- 
mined are  they  to  obstruct  trade  by  protection  statutes. 
Though  they  are  solicitous  for  military  alliances,  they 
are  fearful  of  trade  friendships.  When  we  were  pleading 
in  this  country  for  free  trade  and  friendship  with  Eng- 
land, they  urged  us  to  hate  the  English.  But  when 
England  offered  us  a  barbaric  imperial  alliance  for  the 
subjugation  of  "inferior"  races,  these  same  false  guides 


314         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

were  enthusiastic  in  their  praises  of  the  masterful  char- 
acter and  the  glorious  future  of  Anglo-Saxon  dominion. 
And  to  give  moral  color  to  the  infamy,  they  discoursed 
upon  the  duty  of  loving  England  and  joining  with  her  in 
"extending  civilization." 

If  it  is  civilization  that  we  wish  to  spread,  if  the 
progress  of  the  world  is  our  object,  we  have  only  to 
become  universal  free  traders  instead  of  imperialistic  free 
booters.  Here  is  the  choice.  Free  trade,  with  the  olive 
branch  of  peace  and  the  horn  of  general  plenty ;  or  imperi- 
alism, with  the  destructive  implements  and  the  demoral- 
izing influences  of  war. 

Which  shall  it  be? 


PART     VII 


PATRIOTISM 


Patriotism  having  become  one  of  our  topics,  Johnson  suddenly 
uttered  in  a  strong,  determined  tone,  an  apothegm  at  which  many 
will  start:  "Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel."  But 
let  it  be  considered  that  he  did  not  mean  a  real  and  genuine  love 
of  our  country,  but  that  pretended  patriotism  which  so  many,  in 
all  ages  and  countries,  have  made  a  cloak  for  self-interest. 

'  — Boswell's  "Johnson." 


Our  country  is  the  world — our  countrymen  are  all  mankind. 

— William  Lloyd  Garrison. 


Would  we  tread  in  the  paths  of  tyranny, 

Nor  reckon  the  tyrant's  cost? 
Who  taketh  another's  liberty. 

His  freedom  is  also  lost. 
Would  we  win  as  the  strong  have  ever  won? 

Make  ready  to  pay  the  debt. 
For  the  God  who  reigned  over  Babylon 

Is  the  God  who  is  reigning  yet. 

The  laws  or  right  are  eternal  laws. 

The  judgments  of  truth  are  true. 
My  greed-blind  masters,  I  bid  you  pause 

And  look  on  the  work  you  do. 
You  bind  with  shackles  your  fellow  man; 

Your  hands  with  his  blood  are  wet. 
And  the  God  who  reigned  over  Babylon 

Is  the  God  who  is  reigning  yet. 

— J.  A.  Edgerton,  in  "Democratic  Magazine.' 
317 


Though  your  word  shall  run  with  power,  and  your  arm  reach 

over  seas, 
Yet  the  questing  bolt  shall  find  you  if  you  keep  not  faith  with 

these ; 
Lest  you  be  at  one  with  Egypt,  lest  you  lie  as  Rome  lies  now 
In  the  potter's  field  of  empires,  mint  and  cumin,  keep  the  vow. 
Keep  the  truth  your  fathers  made. 
Lest  your  children  grow  afraid, 
Lest  you  hear  the  captives'  mothers  weeping  sore — 
There  is  little  worth  beside — 
They  are  dead  because  they  lied, 
And  the  young  men's  feet  are  at  the  door. 

— Mary  Austin,  in  "Land  of  Sunshine,"  for  February,  1900. 


Toll  for  the  death  of  Empire!    Through  the  gloom, 
Deep  and  vibrating,  speaks  the  solemn  bell 

The  last  dread  warning  of  the  coming  doom : 
His  body  to  the  dust ;  his  deeds  to  hell ! 

Toll  for  the  death  of  Empire !    Lift  the  head ; 
Take  oflf  the  crown  of  tyranny  and  fear; 
And  let  no  man  do  honor  at  the  bier. 
Ring  for  the  reign  of  Freedom. 

Empire's  dead! 
— Bertrand  Shadwell,  in  The  Public,  for  March  29,  1903. 


3x8 


CHAPTER    I 

WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM  ? 

TO  say  that  patriotism  is  love  of  country  begs  the 
question,  for  love  of  country  must  itself  be  ex- 
plained. It  cannot  mean  love  of  a  country's  soil,  of  its 
trees  and  hills  and  rocks  and  rills.  If  that  were  its  mean- 
ing a  large  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  of  every  nation 
would  be  without  love  of  country,  for  most  of  them  have 
none  to  love.  Not  a  rood  of  old  mother  earth  belongs  to 
them,  nor  can  they  use  any  of  it  without  paying  toll  to 
some  more  fortunate  patriot.  Love  of  country,  to  be  truly 
such,  must  be  nothing  less  than  love  of  one's  neighbors 
within  a  nation's  boundaries. 

But  love  of  neighbors  means  more  than  a  sentimental 
affection  for  what  one  may  call  his  own — as  his  wife, 
his  family,  his  friends,  his  house,  his  horse,  his  cattle. 
Love  of  one's  neighbors  within  the  boundaries  of  his 
nation — love,  that  is,  of  one's  countrymen — if  it  be  love 
of  them  in  very  truth,  must  consist  in  devotion  to  those 
ideals  and  institutions  of  the  country  which  guarantee 
equal  rights  to  all  its  inhabitants. 

If  that  be  patriotism,  however,  then  is  there  a  larger 
patriotism,  a  patriotism  which  embraces  the  world  and  is 
the  political  expression  of  the  golden  rule.  In  the  pur- 
view of  this  larger  patriotism  it  is  treason  to  make  war 
save  for  the  preservation  of  natural  rights.  It  is  treason 
as  well  as  criminal  aggression  to  pursue  a  policy  of  forc- 
ible annexation.  For  he  who  truly  loves  his  neighbors 
within  his  own  country,  who  loves  them  to  the  extent  of 

319 


320        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

cherishing  their  rights  equally  with  his  own,  cannot  draw 
the  line  at  his  own  country.  He  must  abhor  any  inva- 
sion by  his  countrymen  of  the  country  of  others,  which  he 
would  repel  if  his  own  were  the  country  invaded. 

This  larger  patriotism  is  the  antithesis  of  that  spirit  of 
imperialism  w'hich,  appealing  to  spurious  patriotism,  con- 
demns all  opposition  as  treason.  Imperialism  would  sub- 
jugate "inferior"  peoples  on  pretense  of  elevating  them; 
the  larger  patriotism  would  encourage  all  peoples  to 
elevate  themselves.  Imperialism  is  the  national  phari- 
see,  who  thanks  God  that  he  is  better  than  other  men. 
The  larger  patriotism  is  the  national  apostle,  spreading  by 
practice  as  well  as  precept  the  civilizing  principle  of  Him 
who  rebuked  the  Pharisee,  and  taught  men  that  principle 
of  love  which  is  justice  and  that  rule  of  righteousness 
which  directs  each  to  do  to  others  as  he  would  have  others 
do  to  him. 

The  sentiment  which  expresses  itself  in  the  maxim, 
"My  country,  right  or  wrong,"  is  spurious  patriotism. 
It  is  nothing  but  self  love  somewhat  diluted.  Note  the 
logical  gradations:  "My  country,  right  or  wrong;  my 
State,  right  or  wrong;  my  county,  right  or  wrong;  ray 
town  or  city,  right  or  wrong;  my  ward,  right  or  wrong; 
my  voting  precinct,  right  or  wrong;  my  family,  right 
or  wrong ;  myself,  rig^ht  or  wrong.     A-Ie !" 

This  sentiment  has  been  for  nearly  a  century  a  fa- 
vorite with  the  ambitious  who  mask  their  selfish  pur- 
poses behind  pretenses  of  patriotism.  It  originated  quite 
innocently  with  an  American  naval  commander.  Com- 
modore Decatur.  Upon  returning  from  his  historic  ex- 
pedition to  the  Mediterranean,  he  was  everywhere  the 
recipient  of  public  honors ;  and  among  the  banquets  tend- 
ered him  was  one  at  Norfolk,  the  home  city  of  his  wife. 


WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM?  321 

which  came  off  in  April,  1816.  When,  in  accordance  with 
the  custom  of  the  time,  he  was  called  upon  for  a  toast  on 
that  occasion,  Decatur  responded  with  this  sentiment: 
"Our  country!  In  her  intercourse  with  foreign  nations, 
may  she  always  be  in  the  right ;  but  our  country,  right  or 
wrong." 

Considering  its  source,  the  sentiment  was  a  good  one. 
For  Decatur  spoke  as  a  naval  officer  pledged  to  obey ;  not 
as  a  citizen  invested  with  a  right  and  charged  with  a  duty 
to  decide.  It  was  as  if  he  had  exclaimed :  "I  hope  my 
country  in  her  foreign  quarrels  will  always  be  in  the 
right ;  but  be  she  right  or  be  she  wrong,  I  as  an  officer  of 
her  navy  have  no  choice  but  to  execute  her  commands." 

If  a  serious-minded  constable  were  to  say :  "I  hope  I 
may  never  be  required  to  execute  an  unjust  warrant;  but 
just  or  unjust  I  shall  execute  it,"  he  would  express  with 
reference  to  one  grade  of  public  service  precisely  what 
Decatur  expressed,  and  doubtless  intended  to  express, 
with  reference  to  another.  Decatur  could  not  have  meant 
that  as  a  citizen  he  would  vote  either  to  make  or  to  prose- 
cute a  war  that  he  knew  to  be  unrighteous.  Such  a  senti- 
ment would  have  implied  that  he  had  the  instincts  of  a 
buccaneer ;  and  this  is  negatived  by  the  other  words  of  his 
toast,  in  which  he  prayed  that  in  her  intercourse  with  for- 
eign nations  his  country  might  always  be  in  the  right. 
Clearly  he  could  have  meant  no  more  than  that  as  a  mil- 
itary servant  of  his  country  he  would  obey  the  lawfully 
expressed  commands  of  her  people. 

But  the  occasion  of  Decatur's  utterance  was  what 
would  now  be  recognized  as  a  jingo  banquet.  Wine 
flowed  and  glory  glistened.  Here  was  one  of  the  toasts : 
"The  Mediterranean !  The  sea  not  more  of  Greek  and 
Roman  than  of  American    glory."     This  was  another: 


322         ETHICS    OF    DEMOCRACY 

"The  Crescent !  Our  stars  have  dimmed  its  lustre."  And 
here  was  a  third :  "National  Glory !  A  gem  above  all 
price,  and  worthy  of  every  hazard  to  sustain  its  splendor." 

It  would  not  be  remarkable  if  in  those  circumstances 
and  to  that  glory-intoxicated  party  of  banqueters,  Deca- 
tur's conception  of  his  duty  as  a  naval  officer  seemed  like 
a  revelation  of  one  of  the  duties  of  American  citizenship. 
Such  at  any  rate  must  have  been  their  understanding  of 
it,  for  they  gave  that  coloring  to  his  words.  And  so,  for 
nearly  a  century,  Decatur's  fair  fame  has  been  tarnished 
by  this  low  notion,  attributed  to  him,  of  an  American 
citizen's  duty.  Ever  since  his  famous  toast,  no  matter 
how  mean  or  wicked  the  stand  the  agents  of  their  country 
have  taken,  voters  have  been  adjured  in  the  name  of  pa- 
triotism and  even  of  religion,  not  only  by  party  politicians 
but  also  by  so-called  preachers  of  righteousness,  to  vote 
for  their  coimtry's  side  of  every  controversy,  be  it  right 
or  wrong. 

The  voter  who  follows  this  advice  turns  away  from  the 
highest  duty  that  an  American  citizen  can  be  called  upon 
to  discharge — the  duty  of  keeping  his  country,  as  far 
as  his  influence  and  vote  may  go,  in  the  path  of  right- 
eousness. For  in  America,  in  theory  at  least,  the  voters 
are  king.     Officials  are  only  their  servants. 

What  should  we  think  of  an  absolute  king,  who  after  his 
ministers  had  without  his  authority  adopted  an  unright- 
eous policy,  should  confirm  that  policy — knowing  it  to  be 
unrighteous  and  opposing  it  in  his  heart  because  it  was 
unrighteous,  but  confirming  it  upon  the  plea  that  he  must 
sustain  his  country,  right  or  wrong?  What  should  we 
think  of  the  king's  chaplain  if  he  advised  the  king  to  con- 
firm that  policy,  arguing  that  the  king  must  stand  by  his 
country,  right  or  wrong?    Yet  American  citizens,  Amer- 


WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM?         323 

ican  voters,  are  advised  to  imitate  the  absolute  king  we 
have  imagined,  whenever  they  are  urged  to  use  their 
influence  and  vote  in  support  of  their  country's  poUcy, 
right  or  wrong. 

It  is  on2  thing  to  advise  a  constable  to  execute  a  war- 
rant, just  or  unjust;  he  is  an  agent  whose  business  it  is 
to  obey  agents  that  are  placed  above  him.  As  constable 
he  has  no  other  responsibility.  So  it  is  one  thing  to  ad- 
vise a  military  or  naval  officer  to  fig'ht  when  his  superiors 
order  him  to,  be  the  cause  right  or  wrong;  he,  Hke  the 
constable,  is  an  agent  whose  business  it  is  to  obey  agents 
above  him.  As  military  or  naval  officer  he  has  no  other 
responsibility.  But  it  is  a  very  different  thing  to  advise 
citizens  to  vote  for  their  country's  cause,  be  that  cause 
right  or  wrong.  The  responsibility  of  the  voter  cannot  be 
so  lightly  evaded.  There  is  no  one  to  shift  it  to.  Voters 
are  charged  with  the  duty  of  seeing  to  it  that  their  coun- 
try's cause  is  never  wrong.  And  for  this  purpose  they, 
and  not  their  agents  or  officers,  are  the  court  of  final 
appeal. 

Even  at  its  best,  loyalty  to  country,  as  distinguished 
from  loyalty  to  right,  is  a  despicable  sentiment.  It  is 
often  ludicrously  so.  An  instance  may  be  found  in  a 
letter  from  Madagascar,  once  published  in  the  London 
Spectator.  The  letter-writer  was  all  unconscious  of  any 
satire  upon  loyalty.  He  had  nothing  in  mind  but  the  ignor- 
ance of  the  French  soldier  he  quoted.  This  soldier,  a 
corporal  to  whom  loyalty  was  evidently  the  first  law  of 
love,  had  told  the  letter-writer  quite  innocently  that  he 
"thought  it  disloyal  and  altogether  wrong  in  Christ,  when 
he  had  been  born  a  Jew,  to  turn  Christian." 

But  what  is  called  loyalty  to  country  means  something 
even  lower  than  the  words  imply.     Boiled  down  to  its 


324        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

dregs,  this  loyalist  doctrine,  "Our  country,  right  or 
wrong" — not  as  Decatur  meant  it^  but  as  it  is  commonly 
understood — is  not  loyalty  to  country  at  all;  it  is  loyalty 
to  office  holders. 

Now  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  virtue  in  a 
certain  loyalty  to  office  holders.  But  this  virtuous  loyalty 
is  analogous  to  that  which  is  due  from  clients  to  lawyers. 
When  you  have  decided  that  you  have  just  cause  for 
litigation,  you  must  loyally  trust  your  lawyer  to  manage 
the  technical  details.  But  you  cannot  escape  moral  re- 
sponsibility for  making  unjust  claims  and  bracing  them 
up  with  perjured  testimony,  on  any  such  plea  as  that  a 
client  must  be  loyal  to  his  lawyer  right  or  wrong.  The 
legal  technicalities  of  your  case  are  one  thing;  as  to  them 
you  must  trust  your  lawyer,  be  he  right  or  wrong.  The 
essential  justice  of  your  cause  is  another  thing;  as  to 
that  you  must  instruct  your  lawyer,  and  instruct  him 
right. 

So  with  the  relation  of  voters  to  office-holders.  As  to 
methods,  voters  should  be  loyal  to  all  office  holders  who 
are  not  reasonably  suspected  of  infidelity  to  their  trust. 
But  as  to  ultimate  objects,  especially  if  they  involve 
issues  of  right  and  wrong,  it  is  not  only  the  right  but  the 
duty  of  voters  to  command.  The  loyalty  to  an  office- 
holder which  supports  his  policy  right  or  wrong,  so  far 
from  being  patriotism  is  moral  treason. 

This  is  the  species  of  loyalty,  however,  with  which  the 
world  is  most  familiar.  It  is  from  it  that  the  impious 
doctrine  of  "divine  right"  drew  all  its  strength.  In  our 
own  country,  at  the  very  beginning,  the  tories — or  "loyal- 
ists," as  they  called  themselves — were  loyal  only  to  the 
king.  It  was  their  constant  cry  that  the  king  must  be 
supported,  right  or  wrong.    Three-fourths  of  a  century 


WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM?         2'^S 

later,  the  same  sort  of  loyalty  manifested  itself  in  con- 
nection with  the  Mexican  war,  and  James  Russell  Lowell 
caught  it  up  and  laughed  at  it  in  these  well-remembered 
verses : 

The  side  of  our  country  must  oilers  be  took, 

An'  Presidunt  Polk,  you  know,  he  is  our  country. 
An'  the  angel  thet  writes  all  our  sins  in  a  book 
Puts  the  debit  to  him,  an'  to  us  the  pencontry; 
An'  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  is  his  view  o'  the  thing  to  a  T. 

In  later  times  we  have  heard  with  the  old  persistency 
the  same  old  plea  to  the  voters  of  the  nation  to  be  loyal 
to  the  country,  right  or  wrong.  And  when  we  have  probed 
the  matter — nor  has  much  probing  been  necessary — we 
have  found  that  we  were  being  urged  to  be  loyal  not  to 
the  country,  right  or  wrong,  but  to  some  of  President 
Polk's  successors,  right  or  wrong. 

Spurious  patriotism  is  most  dangerous,  however,  when 
the  object  of  its  adoration  is  the  country's  flag.  There  are 
patriotic  pagans  as  there  are  religious  pagans.  The  re- 
ligious pagan  banishes  God  from  his  religion  and  substi- 
tutes ugly  idols.  The  patriotic  pagan  banishes  principle 
from  his  patriotism  and  substitutes  brilliant  bunting. 

This  tendency  to  represent  principles  by  symbols  began 
with  the  race,  and  will  doubtless  persist  while  the  race 
lasts.  It  is  not  only  natural,  it  is  also  useful.  Realities 
which  might  otherwise  be  to  mortal  knowledge  mere  ab- 
stractions, are  thereby  made  visible  and  tangible. 

Symbolism,  however,  is  not  the  truest  mode  of  giving 
material  form  to  abstract  principles.  That  is  supplied  by 
nature  herself.  All  that  we  see  or  feel  in  nature — sun- 
shine, air,  water,  trees,  animals;  all  that  art  applied  to 


326         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

nature  produces  for  the  further  or  better  gratification  of 
our  desires — clothing,  houses,  food,  machinery,  books, 
pictures,  statuary;  all  tfhat  we  do  in  satisfaction  of  natu- 
ral impulses — eating,  working,  playing,  sleeping,  bathing 
— are  material  expressions  of  principles ;  of  principles 
that  we  may  call  moral,  mental,  abstract  or  spiritual,  as 
suits  us  best.  What  we  call  them  is  of  little  moment.  The 
vital  thing  is  that  they  themselves  are  eternal  verities. 

They  are  verities,  too,  that  project  themselves  into  the 
realm  of  matter  in  the  material  forms  to  which  we  have 
referred.  Without  them,  these  forms  could  no  more 
exist  than  could  reflections  in  the  mirror  without  objects 
to  be  reflected.  No  mere  accidental  analogies  are  these 
forms.  They  express  or  manifest  different  phases  of 
eternal  truth,  much  as  fruit  expresses  or  manifests  the 
vital  forces  of  the  tree  that  bears  it.  And  as  the  invisible 
and  intangible  forces  of  the  tree  become  manifest  and 
distinguishable  to  us  in  its  fruit,  so  does  invisible  and  in- 
tangible truth  become  manifest,  distinguishable,  appre- 
hensible, in  the  phenomena  of  material  nature  which  it 
projects.  It  is  because  these  phenomena  are  expressions 
of  principles,  because  they  correspond  naturally  and  nec- 
essarily with  the  respective  truths  they  interpret,  that 
they  offer  the  truest  mode  of  making  abstract  principles 
visible  and  tangible. 

Nevertheless,  artificial  and  arbitrary  symbolism  does 
serve  a  great  purpose  in  likewise  giving  material  ex- 
pression to  abstract  principles.  The  spiritual  significance 
of  natural  phenomena  is  not  obvious  to  all.  There  is  a 
logical  philosophy  there  which  requires  maturity  of  mind 
as  well  as  openness  of  heart  for  its  appreciation  ;  and  when 
that  is  lacking,  arbitrary  symbolism  may  become  a  substi- 
tute for  natural  phenomena  as  an  interpreter  of  what  lies 


WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM?         327 

beyond.  Arbitrary  symbolism  may,  tlherefore,  and  in  fact 
it  does,  serve  the  useful  purpose  of  stimulating  many 
minds  to  a  recognition  of  the  reality  of  abstract  truth.  It 
is  thus  in  some  sort  a  primer  of  spiritual  knowledge. 

The  fraternity  of  Free  Masons  offers  examples  of 
the  inculcation  of  moral  principles  by  means  of  arbi- 
trary symboHsm.  Between  immortality  and  the  sprig  of 
acacia,  between  uprightness  of  human  conduct  and  the 
mason's  plumb,  between  morality  and  the  mason's  square, 
between  the  principle  of  human  equality  and  the  mason's 
level,  there  is  no  natural  relation.  The  one  does  not  pro- 
duce the  other.  This  is  arbitrary  symbolism  and  nothing 
else.  Yet  by  means  of  such  symbols,  principles  that  might 
otherwise  seem  to  be  without  form  and  void,  are  taught, 
perceived  and  felt. 

Similarly  with  religious  worship,  though  in  a  broader 
spiritual  field.  To  inculcate  principles,  arbitrary  symbols 
are  adopted.  Images,  called  idols,  have  been  set  up  to 
represent  deity,  the  Unknown  being  thereby  brought  as 
it  were  within  the  range  of  human  vision  and  the  pos- 
sibilities of  human  touch.  Thus  God  becomes  real  to  the 
simplest  apprehension.  In  like  manner  forms  and  cere- 
monies are  established  that  vital  principles  may  become 
similarly  visible  and  tangible.  Worshipers  kneel  in  token 
of  spiritual  humility.  They  hold  a  cross  aloft  to  sym- 
bolize spiritual  redemption.  They  join  in  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  supper — that  symbol  of  participation  in 
spiritual  good  things,  which  is  typified  naturally  by  nat- 
tural  eating  and  drinking.  They  adopt  the  symbol  of 
baptism  in  token  of  that  cleansing  of  the  spirit  by  divine 
truth  Which  is  naturally  represented  by  bathing  with 
water  for  the  cleansing  of  the  body.  Church  worship, 
even  the  simplest  in  form,  is  replete  with  arbitrary  sym- 
bolism. 


328         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

And  so  is  it  in  the  sphere  of  patriotism,  where  the  great 
symbol  is  the  flag.  A  mere  piece  of  colored  bunting,  a 
nation's  flag  is  nevertheless  the  visible  and  tangible  rep- 
resentation of  national  ideals.  It  is  national  principles, 
national  traditions,  national  honor,  national  aspirations, 
materialized.  What  religious  rites  are  to  the  true  wor- 
shiper, such  is  the  flag  to  the  true  patriot.  It  is  the 
symbol  to  his  eye  of  political  principles  that  appeal  to  his 
understanding  and  enchain  his  affections. 

Rational  uses  of  symbolism  need  no  defense.  So  long 
as  the  symbol  retains  its  proper  place  as  a  symbol,  its 
usefulness  as  an  implement  of  religious,  moral  and  patri- 
otic thought  and  instruction  will  hardly  be  disputed. 
While  the  Free  Mason  finds  in  the  level  a  crude  repre- 
sentation of  God's  law  of  equality,  which  he  adopts  as  his 
own,  he  is  worshiping  God.  So  with  the  savage  who  is 
reminded  by  the  rude  idol  before  which  he  bows,  of  an 
Intelligence  and  Beneficence  that  he  cannot  comprehend 
and  cannot  otherwise  even  concentrate  his  thoughts  upon. 
He  is  a  worshiper  as  truly  as  if  he  were  intelligent  enough 
to  dispense  with  symbols.  It  is  the  same  with  Christian 
churchmen.  Their  worship,  however  formal,  however 
conventional,  however  symbolic  in  its  ceremonies,  is  true 
worship  so  long  as  the  forms  and  ceremonies  and  symbols 
are  to  them  but  convenient  representations  of  spiritual 
truths  that  can  be  realized  in  the  material  world  only  by 
means  of  natural  correspondences — of  natural  symbols.  In 
a  similar  category,  if  not  the  same,  is  the  patriot  who  re- 
veres the  flag  of  his  country  because  it  symbolizes  what  to 
him  is  sacred  in  the  principles  for  which  the  government 
of  his  country  stands. 

But,  when  the  symbol  takes  the  place  of  the  principle 
symbolized,  when  principles  are  ignored  and  their  symbols 


WHAT   IS   PATRIOTISM?         329 

are  revered  for  themselves  alone,  then  symbols  become 
the  detestable  objects  of  mere  fetish  worship.  What  the 
savage  is  who  makes  his  idol  his  god,  precisely  that  is 
the  Free  Mason  who  prates  about  the  square  and  the  level 
regardless  of  moral  obligations  and  the  principle  of 
equal  rights;  precisely  that  is  the  churchman  who  clings 
to  forms  and  ceremonies  regardless  of  the  spiritual  prin- 
ciples they  are  designed  to  symbolize ;  precisely  that  is  the 
man  who  cheers  the  flag  of  his  country  regardless  of 
the  cause  in  which  it  waves.  They  are  fetish  worshipers 
all. 

And  the  worst  of  fetish  worship  is  not  merely  that  it 
is  personally  degrading.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  it  en- 
ables designing  men  to  marshal  fetish-worshiping  people 
against  the  very  truths  their  fetish  originally  symbolized. 
Thus  hypocrites  in  the  church  have  been  able  to  turn  tem- 
ples of  God  into  dens  of  thieves  amid  the  hosannas  of  the 
faithful ;  and  traitors  to  the  commonwealth  have  won  ap- 
plause while  digging  up  its  foundations  and  pulling  down 
its  ideals.  The  fetish  of  a  fetish-worshiping  people  once 
secured,  all  the  power  of  its  superstitious  worshipers  is 
secured  also. 

Popular  liberties  never  have  been  and  never  will  be 
destroyed  by  the  power  of  usurpers.  They  are  destroyed 
by  the  free  consent  of  the  people  themselves.  When  a 
free  people  turn  from  the  principles  of  liberty  to  worship 
its  lifeless  symbols,  they  are  in  condition  to  become  easy 
dupes  of  the  first  bold  leader  who  has  the  shrewdness  to 
conjure  them  with  those  symbols.  No  free  people  can 
lose  their  liberties  while  they  are  jealous  of  liberty.  But 
the  liberties  of  the  freest  people  are  in  danger  when  they 
set  up  symbols  of  liberty  as  fetishes,  worshiping  the  sym- 
bol instead  of  the  principle  it  represents. 


330         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

This,  then,  is  the  difference  between  true  patriotism 
and  spurious  patriotism.  Whereas  the  spurious  patriot 
worships  the  flag  of  his  country  and  is  loyal  to  her  offi- 
cials right  or  wrong,  the  true  patriot  honors  his  country's 
flag  as  the  symbol  of  her  ideals,  and  regards  her  officials 
as  servants  who  are  entitled  to  loyalty  and  respect  al- 
ways when  they  are  right  but  never  when  they  are  wrong. 
The  soldier  may  fight  for  country,  though  his  country  be 
wrong,  yet  be  a  patriot;  but  the  citizen  who  votes  to  put 
his  country  in  the  wrong  or  keep  it  there,  is  a  traitor. 

The  highest  and  purest  patriotism  was  expressed  by 
Lowell  when  he  wrote : 

I  loved  my  country  so  as  only  they 

Who  love  a  mother  fit  to  die  for  may. 

I  loved  her  old  renown,  her  stainless  fame; — 

What  better  proof  than  that  I  loathed  her  shame  ? 


CHAPTER    II 

PATRIOTIC   IDEALS 

THE  American  flag  symbolizes  a  great  political  prin- 
ciple, a  great  moral  principle,  a  great  religious  princi- 
ple. It  is  the  symbol  of  noble  ideals,  toward  the  reali- 
zation of  which  we  have  been  growing  for  a  century 
and  more,  and  which  are  summed  up  comprehensively  in 
the  first  clause  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in 
these  memorable  words: 

"We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men 
are  created  equal,  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Cre- 
ator with  certain  unalienable  rights,  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness," 

As  explained  in  a  previous  chapter,  this  does  not  mean 
that  men  are  created  equally  tall,  or  muscular,  or  moral, 
or  intellectual,  or  civilized.  That  interpretation  of  the 
words  is  either  childish  or  malevolent.  What  is  meant 
is  that  however  men  may  differ  in  height,  in  muscular 
strength,  in  intellectual  vigor,  or  in  other  physicial  or 
mental  endowments,  they  are  created  with  equal  rights. 
To  deny  that  they  are  so  created,  is  to  deny  the  Father- 
hood of  God ;  for  if  God  be  the  Father  of  all  men,  then 
all  men  are  brothers. 

But  rights  have  correlative  duties.  Consequently,  the 
assertion  that  men  have  equal  rights,  implies  that  they 
owe  duties  to  correspond.  It  is  in  fact  the  equivalent 
of  the  assertion  that  each  owes  a  duty  to  respect  equality 
of  rights  in  all.  The  same  principle  is  expressed  by  the 
golden  rule :    "All  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 

331 


332         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  There  could 
be  no  more  unequivocal  statement  of  the  principle. 

This  principle  is  of  universal  application.  It  admits 
of  no  exceptions.  White  men  and  black,  male  and  female, 
rich  and  poor,  ignorant  and  educated,  civilized  and  un- 
civilized, whatever  be  their  religion  or  their  race,  all  have 
equal  rights  which  each  is  in  duty  bound  to  respect.  No 
man  in  his  relations  with  other  men,  can  have  greater 
natural  rights  or  owe  lesser  duties,  than  the  lowliest.  Has 
not  God,  the  giver  of  all  rights  and  the  arbiter  of  all 
duties,  declared  that  He  is  no  respecter  of  persons  ? 

First  among  the  great  fundamental  rights  with  which 
all  are  equally  endowed  and  which  each  is  bound  to 
respect,  is  the  right  to  life.  Men  may  forfeit  it  by  con- 
duct prejudicial  to  the  life  of  others;  but  except  as  so 
forfeited,  the  right  to  life  is  equal. 

So  of  the  right  to  liberty.  This,  too,  may  be  for- 
feited; but  except  as  forfeited  by  conduct  prejudicial 
to  life  or  liberty,  the  right  to  liberty  is  equal. 

So  also  all  are  equally  endowed  with  the  right  to 
pursue  happiness,  a  right  of  which,  like  the  others,  no 
one  can  justly  be  divested  except  for  conduct  in  violation 
of  his  duty  to  respect  the  equal  right  of  all. 

To  these  rights — life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness— there  is  no  other  limitation  in  natural  justice 
than  the  corresponding  duty  so  to  respect  them  as  to 
secure  and  maintain  their  equality. 

Supplementary  to  the  fundamental  proposition  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  that  immortal  charter  of 
liberty  further  asserts  that  the  inalienable  rights  of  man- 
kind already  named  are  secured  by  governments  "deriv- 
ing their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 
This  clause  is  supplementary  because  it  only  elaborates 


PATRIOTIC    IDEALS  233 

the  first  clause,  which  embodies  the  whole  principle. 
And  the  proposition  that  "all  men  are  created  equal" — 
with  equal  rights — includes  not  only  the  right  to  "life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  not  only  the  prin- 
ciple that  governments  derive  their  "just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed,"  but  also  that  right  by  means 
of  which  alone  the  governed  can  peaceably  give  their 
consent  to  the  government — the  right  to  the  ballot. 

Upon  the  foregoing  principles  all  democratic  govern- 
ment is  founded.  The  government  that  does  not  rest 
upon  them  is  not  only  not  democratic,  but  is  not  a  just 
government  at  all.  It  is  but  a  species  of  arbitrary  force. 
Such  government,  by  whatever  fine  names  it  may  describe 
itself  to  indicate  that  it  maintains  stability  and  preserves 
order,  is  in  truth  but  organized  lawlessness. 

And  acceptance  of  these  principles  must  be  more  than 
verbal.  Fully  accepted,  they  preclude  the  recognition 
by  government  of  chattel  slavery.  No  man  can  own 
another  without  violating  his  duty  to  respect  the  equal 
right  of  all  to  liberty;  and  no  government  can  enforce 
such  ownership  without  renouncing  one  of  its  primary 
functions,  that  of  securing  liberty  to  all.  Nor  is  con- 
demnation of  chattel  slavery  enough.  There  are  other 
modes,  more  subtle  but  not  less  oppressive,  of  denying 
equality  of  rights.  Chief  among  these  is  land  monopoly. 
Where  that  flourishes  equal  rights  to  life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  are  inevitably  overthrown. 

Since  in  justice  those  rights  are  equal,  there  must 
in  justice  be  equal  rights  to  land.  Without  land  man 
cannot  sustain  life.  It  is  to  him  as  water  to  the  fish 
or  air  to  the  bird — his  natural  environment.  And  if  to 
get  land  whereby  to  support  life,  any  man  is  compelled  to 
give  his  labor  or  the  products  of  his  labor  to  another, 


334         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

to  that  extent  his  liberty  is  denied  him  and  his  right 
to  pursue  happiness  is  obstructed.  Enforced  toil  with- 
out pay  is  the  essence  of  slavery,  and  permission  to  use 
land  can  be  no  pay  for  toil;  he  who  gives  it  parts  with 
nothing  that  any  man  ever  earned,  and  he  who  gets  it 
acquires  nothing  that  nature  would  not  freely  offer  him 
but  for  the  interference  of  land  monopolists.  It  is  the 
duty  of  government,  then,  to  secure  to  all  equal  rights 
to  land. 

That  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  United  States 
have  not  always  been  and  are  not  now  completely  con- 
sistent with  these  ideals,  is  true. 

When  the  ideals  were  proclaimed,  the  African  slave 
trade  was  a  recognized  occupation;  and  it  continued  for 
more  than  thirty  years  under  the  sanction  of  our  funda- 
mental law.  Slavery  itself  was  protected  by  our  funda- 
mental law  for  three-quarters  of  a  century.  Here  were 
plain  denials  of  liberty. 

In  many  States  the  right  of  men  to  vote  unless  they  had 
property  was  long  legally  denied;  while  in  all  the  States 
the  right  of  women  to  vote  was  denied  until  recently,  and 
in  most  it  is  still  denied.  Here  we  find  another  bald 
inconsistency.  Equality  of  rights  under  the  law  implies, 
and  government  only  by  consent  of  the  governed  vir- 
tually specifies,  the  ballot  as  a  right.  To  deny  the  ballot 
to  any  person  is  to  deny  him  the  power  of  even  protest- 
ing against  the  manner  in  which  he  is  governed.  The 
right  of  consultation  is  inseparable  from  the  right  of  self- 
government;  and  no  right  of  consultation  can  be  enjoyed 
by  a  ballotless  man.  Even  the  lives  of  members  of  a 
ballotless  class  are  dependent  upon  the  good  will  of  their 
political  superiors. 

These  violations  of  the  right  to  life,  liberty  and  self- 


PATRIOTIC   IDEALS  335 

government  were  indeed  inconsistent  with  American 
ideals.  But  they  were  not  denials  of  those  ideals.  The 
inconsistencies  were  in  vogue  when  the  ideals  were  pro- 
claimed. The  ideals  have  survived;  most  of  the  incon- 
sistencies have  been  repudiated. 

The  slave  trade  was  taken  out  of  the  category  of  legiti- 
mate occupations  and  denounced  as  piracy.  Slavery  was 
abolished,  its  re-establishment  forbidden,  and  the  former 
slave  armed  with  the  ballot.  The  ballot  has  been  ex- 
tended in  most  of  the  States  to  all  men  and  in  some  to 
all  women.  The  history  of  slavery  and  of  ballot  restric- 
tion therefore  go  to  prove,  not  deliberate  disloyalty  to 
our  national  ideals,  but  advances  toward  them. 

Equal  rights,  then,  before  the  law ;  equal  rights  to  life 
and  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  equal  citizen- 
ship, with  no  "subjects,"  wherever  the  flag  floats  and  its 
authority  is  asserted ;  and  no  toleration  of  governmental 
powers  not  derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed — 
these  are  the  American  ideals;  these  are  the  basis  of 
American  patriotism;  these  are  the  principles  our  flag 
symbolizes. 


CHAPTER    III 

TRAMPLING  UPON  PATRIOTIC  IDEALS 

THERE  come  times  in  the  history  of  nations  when 
events  compel  them  to  bring  their  actions  to  the 
test  of  first  principles.  At  such  times  the  truly  patriotic 
citizen  is  forced  into  a  searching  and  momentous  com- 
parison of  national  ideals  with  immediate  national  pur- 
poses and  policies.  Upon  the  decisions  at  these  crises 
measurably  depends  the  fate  of  the  nation — whether  it 
shall  rise  farther  toward  its  ideals,  or  sink  away  from 
them.  Nor  can  the  decisions  be  evaded.  For  better  or 
worse,  for  good  or  evil,  for  growth  or  decay,  for  ad- 
vance or  retreat,  in  harmony  with  national  ideals  or  m 
defiance  of  them^  the  decisions  must  be  made. 

Similar  critical  moments  come  also  in  the  Hves  of  indi- 
viduals. There  are  times  when  they,  too,  brought  face  to 
face  with  some  conflict  between  their  momentary  desires 
and  their  moral  ideals,  are  forced  to  choose.  These  are 
the  best  periods  of  a  good  man's  life.  Well  may  such  a 
one  exclaim :  "Thank  God  for  sin  !"  Resisting  tempta- 
tion, he  comes  out  of  the  struggle  better  and  stronger. 
He  is  then  nearer  to  his  ideals,  though  not  abreast  of 
them. 

No  man  is  as  good  as  his  ideals,  if  he  has  ideals. 
Still,  it  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  all  men  are  hypocrites. 
Given  moral  ideals,  a  man  is  to  be  judged  not  by  the 
closeness  with  which  he  commonly  lives  up  to  them,  but 
by  the  willingness  with  which  he  makes  them  his  stand- 
ard in  times  of  temptation.    If  he  then  squares  his  pur- 

336 


TRAMPLING  UPON  IDEALS        337 

pose  with  his  ideals,  he  grows  toward  his  ideals;  if  he 
modifies  his  ideals  to  suit  his  purpose,  he  grows  away 
from  them. 

To  illustrate,  let  us  imagine  a  born  thief,  who  comes 
to  accept  as  one  of  his  moral  ideals  the  eighth  com- 
mandment. He  now  believes  it  wrong  to  steal,  he  tries 
not  to  stealj  and  on  the  whole  he  virtuously  refrains  from 
stealing.  But  now  and  again  he  awakes  to  a  realization 
of  the  fact  that  acts  which  he  had  not  before  understood 
to  be  larcenous  are  larcenous.  His  decisions  when 
tempted  to  repeat  these  acts  will  determine  whether  he 
is  growing  toward  his  ideal  or  away  from  it — whether 
he  is  becoming  less  of  a  thief  or  more  of  one.  If,  hold- 
ing to  the  ideal,  he  struggles  against  the  temptation,  then 
he  gains  in  moral  strength  and  invites  further  moral 
enlightenment.  But  if,  giving  way  to  the  temptation,  he 
modifies  his  ideal — calls  the  eighth  commandment  a  glit- 
tering generality,  construes  it  in  the  light  of  the  lar- 
cenous precedents  he  himself  has  made,  and  interprets 
out  of  it  its  moral  force — then  it  were  better  for  him 
never  to  have  had  an  ideal. 

As  with  an  individual  in  this  respect,  so  with  a  nation. 
When  events  bring  its  purposes  into  open  collision  with 
its  moral  ideals,  and  the  necessity  is  admitted  of  alter- 
ing the  one  or  modifying  the  other,  the  decision  of  that 
nation  determines  the  direction  in  which  it  is  going. 
If  it  decides  for  its  ideals,  it  is  advancing;  if  it  decides 
against  them,  it  is  receding. 

Whether  the  nation  has  always  been  true  to  its  moral 
ideals,  is  at  such  a  time  of  minor  importance.  Whether 
it  is  even  now  true  to  them  in  many  of  its  customs  is, 
in  connection  with  the  crisis  before  it,  of  no  importance 
at  all.    The  vital  question  that  confronts  it  is.  Whether 


339        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

the  new  policy  it  is  urged  to  adopt,  the  new  customs  it 
is  asked  to  establish,  the  new  national  habits  it  is  advised 
to  form,  are  in  harmony  with  its  ideals.  If  they  are  not, 
then  their  adoption  would  be  not  merely  inconsistent; 
it  would  be  equivalent  to  a  deliberate  repudiation. 

To  illustrate  with  a  recent  great  temptation  of  our  own 
country:  We  have  been  passing  through  an  experience 
in  which  we  are  obliged  repeatedly  to  ask  ourselves  as  a 
nation,  not  whether  we  shall  struggle  to  throw  off  some 
ancient  custom  which  is  inconsistent  with  our  ideals,  not 
whether  we  shall  make  a  further  advance  toward  our 
ideals;  but  whether  we  shall  adopt  a  new  policy  which 
denies,  and  is  on  all  hands  admitted  to  deny,  those 
ideals  flatly  and  affirmatively,  positively  and  aggressively. 
We  are  asking  ourselves  whether  we  shall  flout  our  ideals, 
and  shall  consciously  and  deliberately  recede  from  them. 

To  make  conquests  and  establish  over  the  people  we 
conquer  a  government  which  they  do  not  voluntarily  ac- 
cept, and  in  the  management  of  which  they  are  to  have 
no  voice,  a  government  that  is  under  no  constitutional 
obligations  to  protect  their  lives  and  liberties,  but  which 
according  to  those  who  advocate  it  could  dispose  of  all 
their  rights  in  its  discretion,  would  be  to  deny  the  funda- 
mental right  of  self-government  in  a  new  relationship. 
Thus  we  should  not  merely  remain  inconsistent  with  our 
ideals ;  we  should  be  turning  our  backs  upon  them.  This 
is  perfectly  well  understood  by  the  advocates  of  imperial 
colonialism,  and  they  brazenly  urge  us  to  turn  our  backs 
upon  those  ideals,  arguing  that  the  ideals  are  illusory. 

Their  arguments  for  this  new  departure  are  most  plaus- 
ible, perhaps,  when  directed  against  the  ballot  as  an  in- 
herent right.  Men  of  common  sense  are  not  misled  very 
readily  by  the  pettifogger's  plea  of  precedent.    To  them 


TRAMPLING  UPON  IDEALS        339 

it  is  no  argument  against  the  right  of  all  to  the  ballot, 
that  in  practice  the  ballot  has  been  extensively  withheld. 
As  well  argue  against  the  right  to  life  and  to  liberty  be- 
cause those  rights  have  been  withheld.  That  we  have  not 
realized  our  ideals  is  easily  seen  to  be  no  sane  reason 
for  abandoning  them.  Because  only  some  classes  have 
in  fact  been  allowed  to  vote,  is  clearly  a  weak  excuse 
for  denying  the  soundness  of  the  American  ideal  that  all 
are  entitled  to  vote.  To  allow  precedents  thus  to  over- 
rule principles,  would  be  to  make  fetishes  of  precedents; 
or  to  use  them  as  bushels  to  put  candles  under,  instead 
of  lights  to  illumine  the  pathway. 

But  regardless  of  precedent,  there  are  apparently  in- 
herent objections  to  the  universal  suffrage  which  is  nec- 
essarily involved  in  the  idea  of  self-government  and  is 
therefore  negatived  as  a  right  by  the  policy  of  colonialism. 
Some  of  these  objections  have  been  considered  in  other 
connections  in  previous  chapters,  but  they  recur.  It  is 
asked :  Who  shall  vote  ?  What  shall  determine  a  man's 
right  to  vote  ?  What  about  children,  idiots,  lunatics,  con- 
victs, Indians,  Negroes?  Children  are  too  young;  idiots 
and  lunatics  are  incapables ;  convicts  are  social  enemies ; 
Indians  are  savages ;  Negroes,  if  permitted  in  the  South 
to  "express  their  wish  through  the  ballot  and  to  have 
it  counted,"  to  quote  one  objector,  "would  ruin  the 
country."  Are  all  these  entitled  to  vote?  If  not,  they 
are  governed  without  their  consent,  and  then  what  be- 
comes of  the  American  ideal?  Such  is  the  drift  of  the 
questions. 

With  children  there  is  a  debatable  line.  No  one  can 
say  exactly  when  they  mature.  Each  individual  differs. 
But  every  normal  person  does  mature  at  some  time 
between   his   first   day   in   the   world   and   his   thirtieth 


340        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

year;  and  if  the  voting  age  be  fixed  reasonably,  none 
but  a  logic-chopper  could  persistently  object  that  depriva- 
tion of  the  voting  right  prior  to  that  age  is  essentially 
inconsistent  with  our  national  ideals. 

As  to  idiots  and  lunatics,  they  are  in  abnormal  states. 
Disease  makes  them  incapable  of  performing  any  social 
function;  and  as  consultation  regarding  government  is 
a  social  function,  it  is  their  disease  and  not  a  legal  dis- 
crimination as  to  social  rights,  that  really  excludes  them 
«from  voting.  Idiots  and  lunatics,  like  children  during 
immaturity,  are  naturally — not  through  legal  discrimina- 
tion, but  naturally — under  guardianship.  So  long  as 
their  social  rights  are  secured  them  upon  their  emerging 
naturally  from  that  state,  their  equality  of  rights  is  not 
denied. 

Convicts  fall  into  a  different  class.  By  preying  upon 
society  they  forfeit  social  rights.  To  outlaw  a  man  for 
his  crime,  is  not  to  deprive  him  of  equal  rights  under  the 
law.  It  is  punishing  him  for  depriving  others  of  those 
rights. 

As  to  Indians,  if  we  regard  them  as  savages,  it  will 
hardly  be  claimed  that  resistance  to  their  aggressions 
amounts  to  governing  them.  A  people  may  certainly 
defend  themselves  against  savages  without  being  seri- 
ously charged  with  attempting  to  govern  without  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  But  the  truth  is  that  the  Indian 
question  was  made  by  "civilized"  whites,  and  not  by 
"savage"  Indians.  Our  race  has  wantonly  insisted  upon 
governing  the  Indian  without  his  consent.  And  in  so  far 
as  we  have  done  this,  what  success  have  we  had  ?  Would 
either  he  or  we  be  worse  off  if  we  had  invested  him  with 
the  suffrage,  or  left  him  alone  to  govern  himself? 

And  then  the  Negro.    We  are  told  that  if  he  had  his 


TRAMPLING  UPON  IDEALS         341 

ballot  counted  in  the  South  he  would  ruin  the  country. 
What  is  meant  by  the  country?  White  men,  of  course. 
Whether  he  would  really  ruin  the  white  men  of  the 
South  if  he  voted  upon  an  equality  with  them,  no  one  has 
any  means  of  knowing.  The  experiment  has  not  been 
fairly  tried.  But  we  do  know  as  matter  of  history  that 
the  white  men  of  the  South,  with  all  power  in  their  hands, 
ruined  the  Negro — ^^kept  him  a  slave,  which  is  about  as 
near  ruin  as  a  live  man  can  be  driven  to.  Shall  we,  there- 
fore, infer  that  the  white  men  of  the  South  are  unfit  to  be 
trusted  with  the  ballot?  By  no  means.  Yet  upon  the 
facts  it  is  a  more  legitimate  inference  than  the  other. 

Sweep  away  these  hypercritical  objections  to  the  ballot 
right,  and  no  plausible  objections  remain.  When  mature 
men  and  women  are  denied  the  ballot  they  are  not  only 
denied  a  fundamental  right,  but  are  prevented  from  per- 
forming a  fundamental  duty — that  of  advising  and  parti- 
cipating in  government.  All  adverse  arguments  lead 
logically  to  monarchy,  and  if  adopted  as  sound  in  principle 
will  lead  there  practically.  Not  a  single  argument  that  has 
ever  been  put  forward  against  voting  by  the  poor,  by  the 
"unintelligent,"  by  "inferior  races,"  by  women,  by  any  so- 
cial class,  but  is  a  legitimate  corollary  of  the  argument 
for  "divine  right."  Grant  the  premises  of  those  who  argue 
for  a  restricted  suffrage,  and  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Czar  of  Russia  become  as  unassailable  logically  as  they 
are  legally. 

This  is  true  not  alone  of  the  right  of  voting  among 
ourselves,  but  also  of  the  principle  of  government  by 
consent  of  the  governed  in  that  broader  sense  in  which 
we  use  the  words  when  we  refer  to  the  policy  of  imperial 
colonialism.  We  cannot  impose  our  government  upon 
alien  peoples  against  their  will,  without  lining  up  our 


342         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

government  alongside  of  the  autocratic  powers  of  the 
earth.  It  is  only  by  assuming  some  fanciful  divine  right 
in  derogation  of  their  obvious  natural  rights  that  we 
can  make  them  our  "subjects." 

Nor  is  it  any  answer  to  say  that  the  alien  peoples  are 
incapable  of  self-government.  No  one  is  capable  of  self- 
government,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  wish  to  govern 
him.  What  is  our  warrant  for  declaring  a  people  incapa- 
ble of  self-government?  Any  people  are  far  better  able 
to  govern  themselves  than  are  any  other  people  to  govern 
them.  Super-imposed  government  may  exterminate  a 
people;  it  cannot  elevate  them. 

One  of  the  greatest  as  well  as  most  delightful  of 
American  writers,  who  in  the  guise  of  a  humorist  has 
given  us  much  sound  philosophy,  satirizes  the  assumption 
of  superior  ability  to  govern,  and  then  moralizes  in  this 
admirable  way  :* 

"There  is  a  phrase  which  has  grown  so  common  in 
the  world's  mouth  that  it  has  come  to  seem  to  have  sense 
and  meaning — the  sense  and  meaning  implied  when  it  is 
used;  that  is  the  phrase  which  refers  to  this  or  that  or 
the  other  nation  as  possibly  being  'capable  of  self-govern- 
ment'; and  the  implied  sense  of  it  is,  that  there  has  been 
a  nation  somewhere,  sometime  or  other,  which  wasn't 
capable  of  it — wasn't  as  able  to  govern  itself  as  some  self- 
appointed  specialists  were  or  would  be  to  govern  it.  The 
master-minds  of  all  nations,  in  all  ages,  have  sprung  in 
affluent  multitude  from  the  mass  of  the  nation,  and  from 
the  mass  of  the  nation  only — not  from  its  privileged 
classes ;  and  so,  no  matter  what  the  nation's  intellectual 
grade  was,  whether  high  or  low,  the  bulk  of  its  ability 
was  in  the  long  ranks  of  its  nameless  and  its  poor,  and  so 

*  "A  Yankee  at  the  Court  of  King  Arthur,"  published  in  1889. 


TRAMPLING  UPON  IDEALS         343 

it  never  saw  the  day  that  it  had  not  the  material  in 
abundance  whereby  to  govern  itself.  Which  is  to  assert 
an  always  self-proven  fact:  that  even  the  best  governed 
and  most  free  and  most  enlightened  monarchy  is  still 
behind  the  best  condition  attainable  by  its  people;  and 
that  the  same  is  true  of  kindred  governments  of  lower 
grades,  all  the  way  down  to  the  lowest." 

Neither  is  it  an  answer  to  the  objection  to  American 
imperial  colonialism  to  cite  American  precedents  in  its 
favor.  As  already  suggested,  they  prove  nothing  at  the 
worst  but  that  we  have  been  at  times  indifferent  to  our 
ideals.  The  best  use  of  bad  precedents  is  to  show,  by 
those  we  have  set  aside,  how  far  we  have  advanced 
toward  our  ideals. 

It  is  not  now  with  our  country  a  question  of  indiffer- 
ently allowing  old  national  customs  or  laws  to  resist  ad- 
vances toward  national  ideals,  nor  even  of  clinging  stub- 
bornly to  those  antiquated  customs  and  laws.  We  are  pro- 
ceeding with  knowledge,  with  deliberation,  with  intention, 
to  set  up  a  new  policy  which  is  confessedly  hostile ;  and 
in  doing  so  we  seek  justification  not  in  an  attempt  to  ele- 
vate the  policy  to  the  level  of  the  ideals,  but  in  an  attempt 
to  pull  down  the  ideals  to  the  level  of  the  policy. 

Although  it  is  true  that  heretofore  we  have  permitted 
government  by  consent  of  only  some  of  the  governed, 
while  asserting  the  broad  principle  of  government  by  con- 
sent of  all  the  governed,  we  are  now  amending  the  prin- 
ciple itself,  and  establishing  government  by  consent  of 
some  of  the  governed  as  the  American  polity.  This  is 
also  the  Russian  polity. 

We  cannot  make  that  decision  under  existing  circum- 
stances without  trampling  upon  our  national  ideals;  and 
with  a  nation,  as  with  an  individual,  it  were  better  that 


344        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

it  have  no  ideals  than  that  having  them  it  should  delib- 
erately cast  them  aside.  Let  us  in  this  crisis  but  choose 
to  substitute  the  Russian  ideal  of  government  for  the 
American,  and  we  shall  not  be  long  in  descending  to  the 
Russian  mode.  It  is  not  only  the  liberties  of  our  "sub- 
jects" that  are  at  stake;  the  liberties  of  our  citizens  also 
hang  in  the  balance. 

But  if  we  decide  for  our  ideals  instead  of  against  them, 
if  at  this  long-drawn-out  crisis  we  determine  to  be  true  to 
the  principle  of  self-government,  we  may  then  be  grate- 
ful for  the  temptation  which  will  have  made  it  possible 
for  us  to  become  stronger  in  our  love  of  liberty  and  to 
draw  closer  to  our  national  ideals.  For  we  may  be  sure 
that  just  as  truly  as  by  disregarding  the  liberties  of  others 
we  imperil  our  own,  we  shall  by  recognizing  theirs  make 
ours  more  secure  and  perfect. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PARTISANSHIP 

THERE  is  a  certain  habit  of  mind  which  regards 
partisanship  as  unpatriotic.  It  is  a  very  common 
habit,  too.  So  common  is  it  that  most  people  like  to  be 
considered  as  non-partisan.  There  are  so  few  who  do 
not  instinctively  resent  imputations  of  partisanship,  that 
excellent  arguments  may  generally  be  discredited,  espe- 
cially with  the  cultured  mob,  by  the  simple  trick  of 
cleverly  denouncing  as  partisans  those  who  make  them. 
Non-partisanship  is  supposed  to  be  judicial  and  patriotic. 

Yet  most  of  us  are  partisans.  All  people  who  think 
upon  a  subject  at  all,  along  with  a  good  many  who  never 
think,  take  sides.  There  is  nothing  about  this  fact  to 
deplore.  Partisanship  is  by  no  means  necessarily  unpa- 
triotic. The  important  consideration  is  not  that  a  man 
is  a  partisan,  but  how  he  comes  to  be  partisan. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  partisans.  One  kind  take 
sides  according  to  the  opinions  they  form.  This  is  legi- 
timate partisanship.  The  other  kind  form  opinions 
according  to  the  sides  they  take.  This  kind  of  partisan- 
ship is  reprehensible. 

When  a  man  is  a  Methodist  merely  because  his  mother 
was,  or  a  Republican  merely  because  his  father  was,  he  is 
a  partisan  in  the  reprehensible  sense.  He  then  forms 
his  opinions  according  to  the  side  he  takes.  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  all  religious  sectarians  who  cling  to  a 
church,  and  of  all  political  partisans  who  swear  by  a 
party,  merely  because  they  happen  to  have  been  born  in  it. 

34S 


346         ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

It  is  true  also  of  that  species  of  patriotism  already  re- 
ferred to,  that  patriotism  which  expresses  itself  in  the 
phrase,  "My  country,  right  or  wrong."  Could  there 
be  a  lower  plane  of  partisanship?  To  take  the  side  of 
one's  own  country,  not  only  in  battle  but  in  argument, 
not  only  in  military  service  but  in  Congress  and  at  the 
polls,  regardless  of  whether  it  is  right  or  not,  merely 
because  it  happens  to  be  one's  own  country,  is  surely 
partisanship  of  the  worst  possible  kind. 

The  thoughtless  man  may  be  a  partisan  for  his  country 
right  or  wrong,  and  yet  be  a  safe  neighbor;  but  he  who 
is  not  thoughtless,  he  who  takes  that  ground  intelligently, 
is  a  man  to  beware  of.  If  in  any  national  emergency  he 
would  be  for  his  country  right  or  wrong,  he  is  not  un- 
likely in  a  personal  emergency  to  be  for  himself  right  or 
wrong.  As  one's  country  is  only  one's  larger  self,  it 
should  be  the  highest  aspiration  of  patriotism  to  condemn 
his  country  wrong,  at  least  as  heartily  as  he  praises  his 
country  right. 

It  is  to  be  feared,  however,  that  most  patriotism  is  of 
the  reprehensibly  partisan  order.  How  many  patriotic 
Englishmen  knew  or  cared  whether  England  was  right 
or  wrong  in  the  Boer  war?  How  many  patriotic  Ameri- 
cans knew  or  cared  whether  the  United  States  were  right 
in  trying  to  subjugate  peoples  in  the  Orient?  It  was 
enough  to  most  of  them  to  know  that  their  country  was 
fighting.  Whether  it  was  for  liberty  or  for  conquest,  for 
defense  or  aggression,  for  plunder  or  power  or  peace,  was 
in  their  view  of  less  than  secondary  consideration.  The 
one  fact  that  the  country  is  their  country  gives  color  to 
their  opinions  on  every  question  involved.  All  such 
partisans  form  their  opinions  according  to  the  side  they 
take,  instead  of  taking  sides  according  to  the  opinions 


PARTISANSHIP  347 

they  form.  They  belong  to  the  order  of  partisanship 
which  cannot  be  too  often  nor  too  unsparingly  condemned. 

But  not  every  Englishman  who  applauded  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  Transvaal,  nor  every  American  who  approved 
the  subjugation  of  the  Filipinos,  was  a  partisan  of  that 
order.  There  were  those  in  both  countries  who  were  with 
their  country  not  merely  because  it  was  theirs,  but  be- 
cause they  believed  it  to  be  right.  Their  partisanship  was 
entitled  to  respect  because  it  was  the  legitimate  offspring 
and  not  the  illegitimate  progenitor  of  their  opinions. 
They  did  not  form  their  opinions  according  to  the  side 
they  took ;  they  took  sides  according  to  the  opinions  they 
formed. 

This  is  the  universal  test  of  partisanship.  Whether 
in  affairs  of  patriotism,  of  church,  of  party  politics,  or 
anything  else  worth  thinking  about  and  acting  for,  the 
man  who  takes  his  opinions  from  his  coterie — be  that 
coterie  as  small  as  a  prayer  meeting  or  as  large  as  an 
empire — is  a  worthless  partisan.  He  is  worse  than  worth- 
less. In  political  parties  he  generates  dry  rot,  in  churches 
he  is  the  nidus  for  infidelity,  in  the  nation  he  degrades 
patriotism  to  the  cant  of  hypocrites  and  the  flag  to  a 
fetish.  He  is  a  partisan,  but  his  partisanship  is  not  legiti- 
mate. The  partisanship  that  gives  life  to  all  it  touches, 
and  makes  for  intellectual  and  moral  growth,  is  that 
which  results  from  opinions  independently  formed,  cour- 
ageously declared  and  strenuously  propagated. 

Of  partisanship  of  this  kind  no  man  need  be  ashamed. 
It  is  not  a  badge  of  servitude.  It  is  a  test  of  devotion  to 
principle.  The  principle  may  be  wrong.  But  according 
to  his  understanding  it  is  right.  There  can  be  no  devo- 
tion without  partisanship.  Neutrality,  which  is  only  an- 
other name  for  non-partisanship,  may  be  observed  by  th^ 


348         ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

indifferent.  To  the  devoted  it  is  impossible.  In  the 
great  conflict  of  mental  and  moral  forces  no  one  can  be 
neutral.  He  must  take  sides  or  get  out  of  the  fight.  And 
if  he  takes  sides  under  the  inspiration  of  his  brain  cells 
instead  of  his  birth  marks,  he  can  afford  to  smile  at  the 
wheezy  complaints  of  innocuous  non-partisans. 


CHAPTER   V 

PATRIOTIC  CELEBRATIONS 

•  I  T  is  a  gratifying  fact  that  neither  of  the  great  Ameri- 
1  can  holidays — Independence  Day  and  Memorial  Day 
— though  both  are  connected  with  war,  is  in  commemora- 
tion of  the  victories  of  war.  One  celebrates  our  national 
recognition  of  the  democratic  ideals  toward  which  the 
face  of  the  nation  was  turned  from  the  start.  The  other 
is  a  day  of  affectionate  remembrance  of  the  nation's  dead. 

This  is  signficant  of  the  American  spirit.  We  have 
celebrated  victories  in  the  midst  of  wars,  and  at  the  close 
of  wars  we  have  glorified  our  triumphs ;  but  all  attempts 
to  perpetuate  that  species  of  celebration  in  this  country 
have  failed.  It  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  American 
character  as  a  whole  to  take  pleasure  in  memories  of  war, 
nor  is  it  consistent  with  the  American  disposition  to  gloat 
systematically  over  conquered  enemies. 

Those  there  are  among  us,  to  be  sure,  who  would  stim- 
ulate morbid  cravings  for  excitement  by  involving  the 
nation  in  unnecessary  wars.  They  would  utilize  the  in- 
tervals of  peace  partly  with  preparations  for  wars  to 
come  and  partly  with  celebrations  of  victories  achieved. 
But  these  are  not  typical  Americans.  Though  they  put 
themselves  so  much  in  evidence  when  war  is  upon  us 
as  to  seem  to  be  typical,  yet  after  strutting  their  brief  strut 
they  pass  off  the  stage  into  oblivion,  and  the  grand  com- 
memorations of  battle  and  victory  they  had  planned  for 
future  generations  are  heard  of  no  more.  The  American 
people  are  not  a  victory-worshiping  people. 

349 


3SO        ETHICS   OF   DEMOCRACY 

In  that  there  is  hope.  It  is  a  subject  for  noble  national 
pride.  The  nation  that  celebrates  battle  victories  is  a 
brutal  nation.  Not  that  war  is  under  all  circumstances 
to  be  avoided.  Wars  are  sometimes  necessary  conditions 
of  national  righteousness.  So  long  as  there  is  national 
injustice,  so  long  will  the  possibility  of  righteous  war 
persist.  Injustice  is  worse  than  war,  and  some  forms  of 
injustice  can  be  righted  only  by  war.  But  even  the  most 
righteous  war  comes  not  as  a  welcome  opportunity  for 
displays  of  martial  prowess;  it  comes  as  a  solemn  na- 
tional duty.  Its  victories,  therefore,  no  less  than  its  de- 
feats, are  solemn  events.  They  are  not  occasions  for 
rejoicing.  Nothing  which  involves  desolation  and  death 
can  be  made  an  occasion  for  sane  rejoicing,  however 
beneficial  to  mankind  the  after  results  may  be.  We  may 
gladly  and  with  great  rejoicing  cherish  the  righteous 
effects;  but  to  celebrate  the  carnage  of  victorious  battle 
is  to  sink  to  the  level  of  savages.  Few  things  more 
repugnant  to  good  taste  and  good  morals  could  well  be 
conceived  than  national  celebrations  of  national  victories 
in  war. 

It  is  with  peculiar  satisfaction,  then,  that  Americans 
whose  patriotism  is  intelligent  and  mature  may  always 
contemplate  the  approach  of  the  two  great  national  holi- 
days of  their  country.  Though  Memorial  Day  lacks 
that  inspiration  for  the  future  which  belongs  to  the 
character  of  Independence  Day,  and  though  it  offers 
temptations  to  excursions  among  the  tombs  of  dead 
issues  with  our  backs  turned  upon  living  principles,  never- 
theless it  celebrates  no  carnage,  glorifies  no  victory,  per- 
petuates no  hatreds.  Alike  upon  the  graves  of  victor  and 
vanquished,  of  friend  and  of  foe,  afifection  scatters  me- 
morial flowers.    The  day  is  consecrated  to  peace,  though 


PATRIOTIC  CELEBRATIONS        351 

it  be  the  peace  of  death,  and  not  to  the  destruction  and 
desolation  of  victorious  war.  While  not  the  better  of  our 
two  national  holidays,  Memorial  Day  is  in  no  wise  incon- 
sistent with  that  genuine  American  spirit  to  which  even 
the  most  righteous  war  is  tolerable  only  as  a  terrible 
duty. 

But  Independence  Day  is  better.  It  is  consecrated  not 
only  to  peace,  but  also  to  the  ideals  that  make  peace  pos- 
sible. Its  inspiring  appeal  is  to  the  righteous  theory  upon 
which  our  nation  is  founded;  and  however  crudely,  even 
barbarously,  we  may  celebrate  its  annual  return,  we  can 
never  quite  escape  its  sacred  lesson.  The  gist  of  that 
lesson  is,  not  that  we  once  became  an  independent  na- 
tion, but  that  in  becoming  one  we  laid  its  foundation  in 
the  immutable  principle  of  equal  human  rights.  The 
"glittering  generalities"  of  our  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence are  the  glorious  ideals  of  our  republic,  which  we 
celebrate  on  its  natal  day. 

That  we  do  not  advance  farther  and  faster  in  the 
direction  of  those  ideals,  is  what  sometimes  disheartens 
the  democratic  optimist  who  believes  in  their  truth  and 
has  faith  in  their  ultimate  triumph. 


CONCLUSION 


Before  the  monstrous  wrong  he  sits  him  down — 

One  man  against  a  stone-walled  citadel  of  sin. 

For  centuries  those  walls  have  been  a-building; 

Smooth  porphyry,  they  slope  and  coldly  glass 

The  flying  storm  and  wheeling  sun.    No  chink. 

No  crevice,  lets  the  thinnest  arrow  in. 

He  fights  alone,  and  from  the  cloudy  ramparts 

A  thousand  evil  faces  gibe  and  jeer  him. 

Let  him  lie  down  and  die ;  what  is  the  right, 

And  where  is  justice  in  a  world  like  this? 

But  by  and  by  earth  shakes  herself,  impatient, 

And  down,  in  one  great  roar  of  ruin,  crash 

Watch-tower  and  citadel  and  battlements. 

When  the  red  dust  has  cleared,  the  lonely  soldier 

Stands  with  strange  thoughts  beneath  the  friendly  stars, 

—"The  Reformer"  by  E.  R.  Sill. 


354 


CONCLUSION 

THE  GREAT  ORDER  OF  THINGS 

WE  live  in  a  time  when  Deborah's  allegorical  allusion 
to  the  rout  of  Sisera  is  big  with  meaning.  Even  as 
"the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera,"  so  do 
the  eternal  forces  of  moral  righteousness,  circling  ma- 
jestically on  in  their  appointed  orbits,  fight  against  the 
sordid  utilitarianism  that  holds  the  moral  sense  of  our 
generation  in  captivity.  The  victory  of  right  over  seem- 
ing might  is  thus  assured.  At  all  times  when  "the  stars 
in  their  courses  fight  against  Sisera,"  his  chariots  How- 
ever numerous  and  his  hosts  however  mighty,  are  pre- 
destined to  utter  destruction. 

There  is  a  great  order  of  things.  As  to  this  all  doubt 
has  vanished  with  reference  to  the  material  universe. 
Fighting  with  "the  stars  in  their  courses,"  the  physical 
sciences  have  upon  their  distinctive  plane  of  human  expe- 
rience routed  the  Siserian  hosts.  The  powers  that  came 
of  a  bigoted  rejection  of  rational  truth  promoted  by  a 
priestly  utilitarianism  in  the  disguise  of  religious  faith, 
those  old  forces  generated  by  a  union  of  superstitious 
credulity  and  irrational  incredulity,  have  here  yielded  to 
an  enlightened  recognition  of  the  dominance  of  natural 
law. 

We  know  now  that  the  material  universe,  from  largest 
to  least,  is  a  universe  of  law — invariable  law.  Except  in 
obedience  thereto,  no  man — whether  greatest  of  inventors 
or  humblest  of  mechanics — would  any  longer  think  of 
pursuing  his  vocation.     He  perceives  that  disobedience 

355 


356        ETHICS  OF   DEMOCRACY 

would  but  waste  his  labor  and  cripple  his  powers.  He 
realizes  that  it  is  as  he  conforms  and  only  as  he  con- 
forms to  natural  laws,  that  his  undertakings  in  the  utili- 
zation of  matter  can  succeed.  He  knows  that  unless 
he  harmonizes  his  efforts  with  "the  stars  in  their  courses," 
all  he  attempts,  promising  though  it  may  seem  at  first  to 
be,  must  utterly  fail.  In  the  sphere  of  material  things, 
disobedience  to  natural  law  is  fully  seen  to  be  as  a  process 
self-destructive  and  as  a  result  impossible. 

The  law  of  gravitation,  for  instance,  always  holds  sway. 
It  can  be  neither  frustrated  nor  disturbed.  Whether  we 
work  with  it  and  build  ourselves  a  house,  or  defy  it  and 
dash  our  bodies  to  pulp  at  the  foot  of  a  precipice,  it  is  the 
same  law  working  irresistibly  in  the  same  way.  It  serves 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  the  righteous  and  the  unrighteous, 
those  who  seek  its  aid  for  construction  and  those  who 
seek  it  for  destruction.  All  these  it  serves  alike,  accord- 
ing to  their  several  purposes.  If  they  would  build  for 
themselves,  they  have  but  to  go  rightly  about  it  and  the 
law  of  gravitation  helps  them.  If  they  would  destroy 
themselves,  it  permits  them  to  do  so.  But  its  constant 
lesson  is  the  invariableness  of  its  processes,  the  wasteful 
futility  of  opposition,  the  splendid  possibilities  of  con- 
formity. "The  stars  in  their  courses"  fight  against  every 
Sisera  who  defies  this  or  any  other  law  of  the  material 
universe. 

So  is  it,  also,  in  the  moral  universe.  There,  too,  the 
great  order  of  things  holds  resistless  sway.  Its  laws, 
analogous  to  the  courses  of  planets  and  suns,  no  human 
power  can  overcome  nor  any  antagonism  disturb.  More 
than  that.  Not  only  is  the  moral  universe,  equally  with 
the  material,  a  universe  of  invariable  law,  but  its  laws 
are  sovereign  over  those  of  matter.     This  must  be  so, 


CONCLUSION  357 

for  matter  is  merely  a  medium  for  the  expression  of  moral 
purpose.  Except  as  it  is  subservient  to  that  end,  its  ex- 
istence is  inexplicable  upon  the  hypothesis  of  universal 
design. 

As  certainly  as  physical  law  dominates  matter  does 
moral  law  dominate  the  physical.  Though  conformity  to 
the  laws  of  matter  alone  will  enable  us,  for  illustration,  to 
forge  a  knife  of  keenest  blade,  the  uses  of  the  knife — 
without  which  it  has  no  reason  for  existing  and  would 
not  be  made — fall  within  the  jurisdiction  of  moral  law. 
We  may  use  it  to  carve  things  that  minister  to  human 
needs  or  the  human  sense  of  beauty,  thus  serving  our 
brethren  and  moulding  our  own  characters  more  and 
more  in  the  divine  likeness,  while  conquering  the  stub- 
bornness of  external  nature;  or  we  may  make  it  an  im- 
plement for  torture  and  murder.  In  the  one  case  we  ad- 
vance in  moral  righteousness  by  conformity  to  the  moral 
law.  "The  stars  in  their  courses"  fight  with  us.  In  the 
other  case,  we  defy  the  moral  law.  But  we  cannot  over- 
come it,  for  "the  stars  in  their  courses"  fight  against  us. 
Though  the  torture  be  inflicted  and  the  murder  done,  the 
unrighteous  purpose  they  were  intended  to  serve  will  in 
the  outcome  inevitably  fail.  The  stars  in  their  immuta- 
ble courses  fight  always  and  everywhere  against  Sisera. 

Unrighteous  we  may  be  in  thought  and  deed,  but  we 
can  no  more  establish  anywhere  in  the  universe  the  sover- 
eign sway  of  moral  unrighteousness,  of  moral  lawless- 
ness, of  moral  disorder,  than  we  could  establish  a  sway  of 
material  lawlessness  upon  the  plane  of  physics.  The  ene- 
mies of  Sisera,  though  captive  for  a  time,  cannot  fail 
if  their  cause  is  allied  to  "the  stars  in  their  courses."  Be 
their  cause  what  it  may,  whether  material  or  moral,  that 
of  an  inventor  like  the  unknown  discoverer  of  fire  or 


358         ETHICS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  forgotten  maker  of  the  first  wheelbarrow,  of  a  perse- 
cuted and  disheartened  explorer  like  Columbus,  of  pa- 
triots on  the  scaffold  or  of  saints  upon  the  rack,  of  the 
philosopher  with  his  deadly  potion  of  hemlock  or  the 
Nazarene  carpenter  upon  the  cross — whatever  the  cause, 
it  always  has  conquered  and  always  must  conquer,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  great  order  of  things. 

That  this  universal  truth  escapes  general  recognition,  is 
evident  from  the  manifest  tendency  to  subordinate  what 
is  morally  right  to  what  seems  to  be  practically  more  ex- 
pedient, to  displace  loyalty  to  moral  principles  with  slav- 
ery to  material  utilities — in  a  comprehensive  phrase,  to 
elevate  utilitarianism  above  idealism. 

That  this  is  the  marked  tendency  of  the  time,  no  one 
who  observes  can  doubt.  It  may  be  seen  not  alone  in  the 
counting-house,  where  utilitarianism  has  a  proper  and 
useful  abode,  but  in  places  where  moral  ideals  should 
rule.  Great  statesmen  care  much  for  commercial  ad- 
vantages and  little  or  nothing  for  moral  checks  and 
balances.  School  teachers  inculcate  love  of  commercial 
success  at  the  expense  of  moral  aspiration.  From  the 
chairs  of  political  economy  in  our  colleges,  the  subject 
of  correlative  rights  and  duties  in  the  body  politic  is 
marked  "taboo,"  while  professor  and  text  writer  go  far 
afield  in  search  of  plausible  excuses  and  confusing  argu- 
ments in  behalf  of  privileged  classes.  Even  the  pulpit 
has  come  in  many  instances  to  justify  Swinburne's  bitter 
rebuke  when  he  wrote  of  "a  Christian  church  that  spits 
on  Christ." 

As  for  "the  man  in  the  street,"  he  makes  little  pretense 
of  being  anything  but  a  sordid  utilitarian.  He  may  tell 
you  of  the  wisdom  of  honesty,  but  not  of  its  righteousness. 
He  extols  honesty  merely  because  it  is  wise,  merely  be- 


CONCLUSION  359 

cause  it  is  expedient,  merely  because  it  is  the  best  policy, 
merely  because  it  pays.  How  is  it  possible  to  avoid  the 
feeling  that  notwithstanding  all  his  preachments  about 
the  common  kind  of  honesty  that  pays,  his  conduct  re- 
garding the  finer  kinds  that  do  not  seem  to  pay  might  but 
rarely  bear  inspection  ? 

In  every  class  of  society,  from  top  to  bottom,  and  ap- 
parently with  almost  every  person  in  each  class,  the  old 
appeal  to  rights  and  duties  seems  to  have  lost  its  potency. 
We  are  accounted  dreamers  and  fools  if  we  urge  the 
righteousness  of  any  cause  as  a  reason  for  adopting  it. 
The  uppermost  question  everywhere  is  whether  the  cause 
will  pay.  If  it  apparently  will,  then  if  it  is  also  morally 
right  so  much  the  better;  but  if  it  apparently  will 
not,  then  the  fact  that  it  is  morally  right  cuts  no  figure. 
This  accounts  for  the  popularity  of  statistics.  So  in- 
sanely sordid  have  we  become  that  in  dealing  with  statis- 
tics we  not  only  always  ignore  the  moral  factor  but 
frequently  the  mathematical  one  also.  Statistics  that  show 
"pay  dirt"  are  pretty  apt  to  "go,"  no  matter  how  repug- 
nant they  may  be  both  to  common  sense  and  the  plain 
principles  of  morality. 

As  a  rule,  however,  the  utilitarianism  of  the  day  fully 
recognizes  the  dominance  of  natural  law  in  the  material 
universe  in  which  it  seeks  to  make  mankind  captive.  It 
realizes  the  necessity  of  conforming  to  the  great  order  of 
things  in.  its  physical  aspects.  What  it  ignores,  is  the 
predominance  of  moral  law.  "Ignores"  is  hardly  the 
word.  Its  attitude  toward  the  moral  law  is  one  of  defi- 
ance. 

But  this  is  only  a  passing  phase.  It  is  the  swing  of  the 
pendulum  back  from  the  crude  perceptions  of  moral 
righteousness  in  the  social  world  which  prevailed  during 


36o        ETHICS   OF    DEMOCRACY 

the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth — a  swing-  which,  though  backward 
in  one  sense  is  forward  in  another,  for  it  touches  a  higher 
conception  of  utilitarianism  than  that  which  preceded  the 
idealism  it  has  displaced.  The  return  swing  is  sure  to 
come.  Then  society  will  have  a  better  appreciation  of 
correlative  rights  and  duties,  a  clearer  perception  of  the 
moral  law,  and  a  wider  and  truer  vision  of  its  relation- 
ships than  have  ever  come  to  any  but  the  seers  who  have 
gone  up  into  the  mountain  tops  with  God. 

If  utilitarianism  has  any  sway  it  is  not  because  it  is 
sordid  but  because  with  all  its  sordidness  it  represents 
what  to  idealism  is  as  body  to  soul.  Idealism  can  ex- 
press itself  in  this  material  world  only  through  utilitari- 
anism. If  at  one  time  the  ideal  seems  predominant  and 
at  another  the  material,  it  is  because  our  conceptions  of 
both  are  advancing  through  action  and  reaction. 

That  which  we  have  likened  to  a  swinging  pendulum  is 
as  the  ebb  and  flow  of  battle.  Now  one  side  seems  to 
have  the  victory  and  now  the  other.  But  in  this  battle, 
whatever  is  true  and  good  in  both  sides  will  conquer. 
For  there  is  good  and  truth  in  both  utilitarianism  and 
idealism,  and  for  the  good  and  truth  in  each  "the  stars  in 
their  courses"  fight  against  Sisera.  Whatever  is  imperfect, 
inadequate,  narrow,  indefinite,  and  one-sided  in  our  per- 
ceptions of  the  ideal,  is  improved,  expanded,  broadened, 
defined  and  rounded  out  with  every  succeeding  reaction 
from  utilitarian  epochs;  while  whatever  is  sordid  in  our 
utilitarian  practice  and  precept  is  in  turn  sloughed  off  by 
better  and  better  ideals. 

In  this  great  struggle  which  leads  on  toward  general 
recognition  of  the  dominion  of  the  highest  ideals  of 
morality  over  the  truest  utilities  of  physical  existence, 


CONCLUSION  361 

toward  the  same  recognition  by  man  of  the  moral  law 
that  he  has  already  given  to  physical  law,  toward  the 
adaptation  of  material  righteousness  to  moral  righteous- 
ness, toward  the  natural  adjustment  of  human  relation- 
ships both  individual  and  social — in  this  battle  for  free- 
dom from  defective  ideals  and  a  sordid  utilitarianism, 
many  there  be  that  fight  with  Sisera.  But  they  cannot 
alter  the  predominant  law.  "The  stars  in  their  courses" 
fight  against  them.  They  are  doomed  to  defeat  by  those 
who,  few  in  number  though  they  be,  attach  themselves 
to  the  causes  that  harmonize  with  the  great  order  of 
things. 


Truth  hath  a  snowy  wing  will  mount  to  heaven — 

A  crystal  eye  she  hath  to  fathom  hell. 
Man  cannot  stay  her,  and  her  sacred  leaven 

Shall  work  until  all  things  on  earth  be  well. 
Then  in  the  radiance  from  the  eyes  of  Truth 

The  world  will  shine ;  things  will  no  longer  seem, 
But  naked  stand  in  neither  spite  nor  ruth, 

And  straightened  be  the  tangle  of  our  dream. 

— C.  E.  S.  Wood,  in  the  "Boston  Pilot"  of  April  15,  1902. 


363 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Abel  61 

Ability  58,  184 

Absolute  moral  right 53 

Academic    discussion xviii 

Action,  criminal  277 

Affirmations,  9;  verbal,.     11 

Aguinaldo   33 

Allen,  W.  H.,  on  foreign 

trade   213 

Alliances    for    peace    or 

war  313 

Altruistic  competition...  169 
Analysis,  economic,   185; 

of  the  drama 185 

Antaeus   113 

Apollos  6 

Applause,  ex  post  facto. .    19 

"Arena" xvi 

"Arthur's    Court,"   "A 

Yankee  at  King." 342 

AsTOR,  John  Jacob 31 

Atheism   5,  51,  363 

Atheistic   pessimism 13 

Austin,   Mary 318 

Australia   313 

Australian     Common- 

wealth    303 

Baker,  Ray  Stannard .  124,  128 

Balance  of  trade 309 

Barons,  manufacturing. . .     99 

Beggary  64,  179 

Berens,  Lewis  H 144 

Bible,   the 75 

Boer  war 346 


PAGE 

Bonanza  farming 98,    99 

BOSWELL    317 

Brotherhood   60,  331 

"Brother's  keeper,"  "Am 
I  my" 57,     60 

Business,  life,  xx,  45 ;  im- 
morality, 49;  ethics,  65; 
concentration    ...95,  100,  117 

Caesar,  Julius 301 

Cain   57,    60 

Canadian    Dominion.. 303,  313 

Capital    316,240 

Carlyle,  Thomas 145 

Carman,    Bliss 144 

Carnegie,  Andrew 126 

Caste  39 

Celebrations,   patriotic...  349 

Chicken   pox 117 

Christ  76 

Christians    76 

Christmas   43 

Civilization,  67;  and  trade  311 

Classes   309 

Clemens,  Samuel  M 343 

College,     graduates,      33 ; 

commencements    24 

Colonialism    343 

Commonwealth,  the  So- 
cialist     128 

Communal  rights 265 

Communism    181,183,184 

Community  and  govern- 
ment      373 

Compensation  88 


36s 


3^6 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Competition,  58,  59,  94, 
100,  110,  140,  158,  174, 
176,  186,  194,  254;  altru- 
istic, 169 ;  egoistic 169 

Concentration  of  busi- 
ness    95,  97,  100,  119 

Conscience,  social,  18;  in- 
dividual        18 

Constitution,  American.,  xiii 

Construction  16 

Consumption  of  products.  150 
Contracts,   196,   284;   un- 
conscionable     285 

Cooperation,  58,  165,  186, 
192,  237,  239 ;  and  wages,  196 

Corporations  114 

Correspondences,  natural.  326 

Country,  love  of 320,  330 

Crime,  and  business,  29; 
and  criminals, 

275,  277,  278,  279 

Crosby,  Ernest 47 

Crown  colonies 302 

Crusoe,   Robinson 234,240 

CuTicuLAR  remedies 121 

Czar  of  Russia 341 

Dakota  land  values 153 

Dancing  31 

"Dark  Ages,"  the 308 

"Dead  hand,"  the 286 

Deborah   355 

Debts,  public,  282;  repudi- 
ation  of 282 

Decatur,    Commodore 320 

Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence     xii,   259,  331 

Dedication  iii 

Demand   150,  152 

Democracy, vii,  xvi ;  demo- 
cratic      xvi 


PAGB 

Democratic  government, 

xiv,  255 

Democratic  party xiv 

Democrats,   democratic. . .  xvi 

Department  stores 87,    91 

De  Tocqueville,  Alexis, 

viii,  292,  297 

Destiny  and  Duty 305 

Destruction  for  construc- 
tion        16 

Devil,  the 11,  307 

Devil- worship   5 

Devotion  15 

Diagram,  an  economic. . . .  247 
Discussion,   academic. . .  .xviii 
Diseased  industrial  condi- 
tions     122 

Dishonesty  82 

Distribution  of  products.  183 

Dives   xxii 

Dividends  216 

Divine  adjustments 49 

Division  of  labor 237 

Docks    118 

Dogmatism    xvi 

Drafts,    commercial 210 

Drama,  analysis  of  the 185 

Duties  and  rights 262,  331 

Duty,  doing  more  than. 34,    36 

Economic,  tendencies,  85 ; 
forces,  141 ;  "science," 
162 ;  text-books,  157 ; 
Georgian  law  of,  168; 
exploration  and  survey, 
218;  mysteries,  218;  fac- 
tors, 224;  diagram,  247; 
experts    291,  294 

Economy,  in  combination, 
119;  political 147 

Edgerton,  J.  A 317 


INDEX 


367 


PAGB 

Education   310 

Egoistic  competition — . .  169 
Elementary  principles. .  .xviii 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo, 

viii,   145,   218,  256 
Empire,  characteristics  of, 

300 ;  Anglo-Saxon 303 

Empiricism    53 

Employer   and    employed, 

187,  195 
Employment,  scarcity  of..     93 

Empty  wells 29 

England,  land  values  in. .  153 

English  landlords 217 

Equality,  association  in. .     iv 

Error   11 

Ethics  of  democracy xx 

Evil,  11,  18,  117,  306;  po- 
litical         18 

Evolution,  114,  115,  116, 
122,  249,  252;  of  good 
from  evil,  117;  of  store- 
keeping    88,     89 

Exchange,  of  work,  67, 
182 ;  foreign,  210,  211, 214, 

216;  par  of 210 

Exports  and  imports, 

198,  199,  200,  201,  209 
Extortion  71,  77,    79 

Failures  25 

Faith    15 

Falsity    11,    22 

Farm   "hands" 99 

Farming,  bonanza,  98,  99; 

small,  98;  Western 98 

Fatherhood  of  God 331 

Fault-finding    18 

Fees  as  wages 185 

Filipinos  347 

Fishing  trust 118 


PAGB 

Flags,  symbolism  of.  .328,  335 

Foreign  trade 197,  201,  212 

Form,  regardless  of  sub- 
stance, 10 ;  negative 10 

Fortunes,  great 79 

Fourth  of  July 349 

Franchises,  monopoly 217 

Free   Masons 327 

Free  trade 160,  198 

Freights  in  foreign  trade.  215 
Froude,  James  Anthony, 

145,  258»  302 
Future,  living  in  the 23 

Garcia,  Gen.,  33 ;  the  mes- 
sage to 33 

Garland,  Hamlin 47 

Garrison,  Wm.  Lloyd 313 

Gentlemen  and  democ- 
racy       xi 

George,  Henry,  iii,  iv,  xiii, 
22,  76,  86,  134,  136,  137, 

146,    173,    198,   234 259 

Georgian  law  of  econo- 
mics     168 

GiDDiNGS,  Franklin  H 305 

GiRARD,   Stephen 31 

God,  Fatherhood  of,  331;  a 

rational  being,  6 ;  will  of,    29 
Gold,  as  a  commodity,  210; 

ebb  and  flow  of 211 

Golden  rule,  the 60,  332 

Gomorrah  308 

Good,  evolution  of,  117;  or 

evil,  choice  of 306 

Good  will,  business 104 

Government,  object  of, 
xiii  ;  democratic,  xiv, 
xxi,  255 ;  tyranny  in,  19 ; 
self,  259;  natural,  261; 
by    the    governed,    262, 


368 


INDEX 


PAGE 

264;  by  superior  force, 
262,  264;  and  the  indi- 
vidual, 273;  and  the 
community,  273;  by  the 
strongest,  310 ;   and 

trusts  113 

Graduate,  the  college 23 

Grain  shipment  illustra- 
tion   201 

Gravitation,  law  of 356 

Great  Britain,  excess  of 
imports 213 

"Hands,"  farm 99 

Hanna,  Marcus  A 304 

Harmony,    natural,    xxi ; 

moral    54 

Hay,  John viii 

HiGGiNSON,  Thomas  Went- 

worth   144 

Hire,  laborer  and  his 177 

History,     industrial,     188, 

191;  function  of 290 

Honesty  the  best  policy. .  49 
Human  nature,  laws  of, 

171,  188 

Hypocrite,  an  inverted...  13 

Idealism  54,    360 

Ideals,  patriotic,  331,  336; 
and  purpose,  337;  grow- 
ing toward 337 

Idle  rich 68 

Illustrations   of   foreign 

trade   201 

Image   worship 42,    43 

Immorality,  business 49 

"Imperator,"  Roman 299 

Imperial   colonization 343 

Imperialism    xxii,  299 

Imports,   excessive 198,213 


rAOB 

Increment,  unearned, 

154,  156,  157 

Independence  Day 349 

Independence,  Declaration 

of   xxi,  259,  331 

Individual,  life,  21 ;  liberty, 
130;      conscience,      18  ; 

rights    265 

Industry,  as  the  condition 
of  success,  32,  34,  35,  37; 
a  virtue,  36;  captains  of.  186 
Industrial,  field,  104 ;  mal- 
adjustments, 99, 134;  sys- 
tem, 115;  conditions  dis- 
eased, 122;  history...  188,  191 

"Industrials,"   the 110 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G 186 

Injustice   22 

Institutions,   social 19 

Introduction  vii,    ix 

Inverted,  saint,  13 ;  hypo- 
crite, 13 ;  religion 186 

Involution   252 

Irish,  rents 217 

Isaiah   2 

Jefferson,  Thomas xv 

Jesus,  at  Bethsaida,  16;  of 

Nazareth   43 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel 317 

Jonah    14 

Jug-handled   regime 174 

Jury,  trial  by,  287;  rights 
of,  288 ;  judicial  contempt 
of,  288;   origin  of,  289; 

neglected  duty  of 298 

Justice,  22;  or  sacrifice, 
56;  meaning  of,  63;  law 
of  171 


ICendall,   May. 


22 


INDEX 


369 


Labor,  223 ;  question,  92 ; 
problem,  94;  in  a  corral, 
134 ;  division  of,  237,  239 ; 
union   of,   237;    demand 

and   supply 27 

Laborer  and  his  hire 177 

Labor  -  saving  machinery, 
92;     invention,    103,   226,  228 

Lalor,  James  Fintan 145 

Land,  113,  225,  226,  227; 
incomes  from,  72;  mo- 
nopoly of,  73,  134,  135, 
136,  254;  and  trust  ques- 
tion, 108;  values  of,  134, 
152;  rent  of,  217;  equal 
rights  to,  333;  disparity 
of  ownership  of,  80;  in 
New     England,     98;     in 

Manitoba    153 

"Land  of  Sunshine" 318 

Larceny   29 

Lazarus  xxii 

Leg-idea,  the 175 

Legislation  against  de- 
partment  stores 91 

Leisure  and  civilization...     67 
Liberty,     individual,     130 ; 

potency  of 249 

Life,  business,  45  ;  ele- 
mentary principles  of 
social,  xix ;  individual, 
21;  story  of  a  human...  307 

Lincoln,  Abraham xv,  256 

Living  Truth,  the 43 

Lowell,     James     Russell, 

xxi,    xxii,    325,  330 
Luck    28 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Bab- 
ington   xix,  256,  261 


PAGB 

Machinery,  113 ;  labor- 
saving,  92 ;  and  the  single 

tax  139 

Majorities  269 

Maladjustments,  indus- 
trial     99,  134 

Man,  brotherhood  of xx 

"Manchester   Guardian," 

the   304 

Manila  Bay,  battle  of 304 

Manitoba,  land  value  in. .  153 
Manners,  democracy  and.  x 
Manufacturing  barons...    99 

Markets,  foreign 197 

Masters,    and    serfs,    99; 

and   men 86 

Material  and  spiritual . . .  252 

Mazzini  xxi,  256 

McClure's  Magazine 124 

McKiNLEY,  Wm 33,  199 

Mean-level,  of  the  ocean, 
147;  of  political  econ- 
omy     148,  154 

Memorial  Day 349 

Men,   self-made,   29;    and 

masters 86 

Merchant  princes 99 

Middlemen  192 

Millionaires  82 

Mines,  ore,  107;  trusts 105 

''Mirror,"  the  St.  Louis. . .  xvi 

Monarchy,  absolute 264 

Money,  74,  219,  241,  246; 
and  great  fortunes,  79; 
mediation  of,  175;  as  the 

root  of  all  evil 248 

Monopoly,  159 ;  as  the  con- 
dition of  business  suc- 
cess, 38;  nature  of,  38; 
primary,  104 ;  the  basis  of 


370 


INDEX 


PA6B 

trusts,  122;  institutional, 
161 ;  adjustments  of,  165  ; 
of  natural  opportunities, 
195;   franchises,  217;   of 

land  254 

Moral,  principle,  50,  52; 
right,  52,  53 ;  harmony, 
54;  law,  the,  356;  right- 
eousness       54 

Motive,   criminal 275 

MuzzEY,  Annie  L 257 

Mysteries,  economic 218 

Natural,  conditions  of 
success,  49 ;  opportuni- 
ties, 195;  resources,  225; 

law 356 

Nazarene  Carpenter,  the.  358 
Needs,   to   each   according 
to  his,  58;  and  abilities..  184 

Negation,   affirmative 9 

"New  Age/'  London 22 

New    England,    98;    land 

values  in  153 

New  Jersey  trust  laws 115 

New  Zealand  313 

Nineveh    14 

NiNEVITES,  the 14 

Noah   14 

Nomenclature,  looseness 
of    185 

Obligations,  saving  of 69 

Oligarchies  265 

Open-door  to  China,  the. . .  197 
Optimism,  xvii,  12;  spuri- 
ous, xix,  5,  14;  genuine, 
xix,  19;  Godward,  13;  of 

college  graduates 24 

Optimist,  the  democratic, 
1 ;  the  happy-go-lucky.  14,    27 


»AOB 

Optimistic  pessimism 13 

Order  of  things,  the  great, 

xxi,  355 
O'Reilly,  John  Boyle, 

viii,  146,  257,  258 

Overproduction   199 

Overvaluations  of  ex- 
ports     214 

Parliamentary  tactics 10 

Partisanship,    345 ;     two 

kinds  of,  345 ;  test  of . . .  347 

Past,  living  in  the 23 

Patents   104,  105 

Patriotic,  ideals,  331,  336; 

celebrations    349 

Patriotism,  xxi,  315 ;  what 

is,  319 ;  the  larger 320 

Paul  6 

Pay,    for    preaching,    177, 

181;  for  work,  179,  183; 

working  for  sake  of 181 

Peace,  xxii,  xxiii;  alli- 
ances for   312 

Peddlers    89 

Pennies,  in  trade 219 

Pessimism,    xviii,    7,    12; 

optimistic,  13;  atheistic.  13 
Philosophy,  18th  century, 

xiii ;  of  the  schools 5 

Physical,  law,  355;  right- 
eousness         54 

Piety  as  the  condition  of 

success    30 

Pitfalls  for  youth xx 

Policy,  honesty  the  best.49,  54 
Political    Economy,    147 ; 

Georgian    law    of,    168; 

mystification  theories  of,  185 
"Political   Economy," 

"Science  of" 234 


INDEX 


371 


Politico-Economic  princi- 

ciples  143 

Polygamy,  anti-,  10 

Poor,  the  thrifty,  28;  dis- 
tinguishing   those    who 

are,  76;  and  rich 78,    82 

Poverty  57,    82 

Power,  evil  of  absolute...  300 

Preachers  of  truth 179 

Preaching,  truth,  177;  for 

pay   177 

Precedents  and  principles.  339 
Present,  living  in  the,  23; 

wallowing  in  the 23 

Prices  96 

Princes,  merchant 99 

Principles,  elementary, 
xviii ;   politico  -  economic, 

143 ;  precedents  and 339 

Production,  large  scale,  95, 
98,  137;  small  scale,  95, 
137 ;  and  distribution, 
112;  individual,  240;  and 
creation,    242 ;    direction 

of  labor  in 156 

Profits,  88 ;  as  wages 185 

Progress,  law  of iv 

"Progress    and    Poverty," 

22,  250,  138 
Property,   rights   of,   248; 
qualifications  for  voting.  310 

Prosperity    xxii 

Protection   91 

"Provincial,"  meanings  of,  163 
Public,    buying    habits    of 
the,    104;     debts   of  the, 
282;  contracts  of  the, 

284,  285 
^'Public,"   "The".xvi,  2,  3,  318 

Quarreling,  deferential ...  157 


Queen  bee,  the. 


PAGE 

.     59 


Railroad,      trusts,      105  ; 

terminal   points 105 

Rarities,  value  of 155 

Real  Estate,  rents 216 

Regeneration,  gospel  of. . .    63 

Religion,  inverted 186 

Religious  experience,  athe- 
ism as  an 16 

Remedies,  cuticular,  121 ; 
for  industrial  maladjust- 
ments      134 

Rent,  243;  of  real  estate, 
216;  of  land,  217;  "water" 

in   244 

Repentance,   social 19 

Republican,  origin  of 
party  name,  xiv;  history 
of  the  party,  10;  demo- 
cratic    xvi 

Resistance,  line  of  least. . .  167 
Respect,    for   the    respect- 
able, 41 ;  for  the  true 43 

Rich,  the  idle,  68 ;  wishing 
to  be,  74;  distinguishing 
those  who  are,  76;  and 

poor   78,     82 

Riches  57 

Righteousness,  xxiii ;  phy- 
sical, 54 ;  moral 54 

Rights,  vested,  52 ;  of  prop- 
erty, 248;  and  duties, 
262,  331;  two  classes  of, 
265  ;  individual,  265  ; 
communal,  265 ;  repudia- 
tion a  sacred  right,  286; 

fundamental  332 

Riis,  Jacob  A 35 

Roe,  Richard 201 


37^ 


INDEX 


PAGE 

Roman,  republic,  299;  em- 
pire, 299;  imperialism...  299 
Rome  as  a  world  power. . .  301 
RuSKiN,  John 77 

Sacrifice,   or   justice,    56; 
defined   56 

Saint,  an  inverted 13 

Salaries,  as  wages 185 

Salisbury,  E.  J 2 

Sanding  sugar 51 

Santa   Claus 24,    28 

Satan  26 

Saved-up,  wealth,  68;  ser- 
vice     i    69 

Scarcity  222,  238 

Schools,  philosophy  of  the      5 

Schwab,  Charles  M 34,  131 

"Scientific,"  authority, 

53;  cult  in  economics 158 

Scully,  Lord 217 

Self  -  Government,       259, 
268 ;  as  a  "capacity,"  271 ; 

and   peace 274 

Self-love   sacrifices 60 

Sepulchres,  whited 42 

Serfs  and  masters 99 

Service,    for    service,    67; 

pay   for 177 

Serviceability,  22,  230,  237,  238 

Shadwell,  Bertrand 318 

Shipping  trust 119 

Sill,  Edward  Rowland 354 

"Sin,"  "thank  God  for"...  336 
Single  Tax,  and  trusts, 
131;  defined,  135;  and 
storekeepers,  136,  138 ; 
and  farmers,  136,  138; 
and  wage  workers,  137, 
138  ;  and  machinery,  139  ; 
principle  so  named,  140; 
method  so  named 141 


PAGB 

Sirens'  song 16 

SiSERA    355 

Slave   trade 261,  335 

Slavery,  37,  241,  335 ;  anti-, 

10 ;  sum  of  sin 248 

Social,  structures,  17  ; 
problem,  39,  86 ;  disorder, 
122;  evolution,  249;  life, 

principles  of xix 

Socialism,  116 ;  and  trusts, 
112,  123 ;  eonomic  prin- 
ciples of,  123;  ethical 
principles  of,  123 ;  pa- 
ternal, 128 ;  democratic, 
128;  and  wages  system, 

186,  195 
Socialist  Commonwealth.  128 
"Spectator,"  London... 80,  323 

Spiritual  and  material 252 

Spurious   optimism..  ..xix,      5 

Standard  Oil  trust 106,  120 

Standards,   false 42 

States,  free  trade  between 

the  313 

Statistics,   Treasury 209 

Stealing,  a  moral  crime. .     30 
Steel,  trust,  107,  115,  124, 

125 ;   manufacturing Ill 

Steffens,  Lincoln 35 

Stetson,  Charlotte  Per- 
kins        46 

Stock,  watering  of 51 

Storekeeping,  87 ;  depart- 
ment, 87 ;  truck,  88 ;  evo- 
lution of,  88,  89;  whole- 
sale, 88  ;  retail,  88 ;  com- 
pensation for,  88;  legis- 
lation against  depart- 
ment         91 

Story,  Judge  Joseph 291 


INDEX 


373 


,  PAGE 

Story,  of  young  lawyer, 
xviii;  of  Negro  stump 
speaker  in  Texas,  iii;  of 
lazy  farmer,  5;  of  Negro 
boy  monopolist,  31;  of 
new  court  house,  17;  of 
Zangwill's  Jew 75 

Subordinate  trusts 106 

Substance,  regardless  of 
form   10 

Success,  22,  26 ;  cost  of,  27 ; 
prime  condition  of,  30; 
by  piety,  31;  by  industry, 
32,  34,  35;  natural  condi- 
tion of,  37,  49 ;  monopoly 
as  the  condition  of 38 

Suffrage,  manhood,  261 ; 
universal,  269,  339;  as  a 
right,  270,  337;  objec- 
tions to,  270,  339;  re- 
stricted    341 

Sugar,  sanding 51 

Swapping    220 

Swinburne,  Algernon 
Charles    358 

Syllogistic  method  of  rea- 
soning   xviii 

Symbolism   326 

Talmadge,     Rev.    T.    De 

Witt    186 

Tariff,    and    trusts,    105; 

duties    214 

Tax,  the  Single 131 

Temptation,  social 18 

Tendencies,  economic,  85; 

a  science  of 147 

Tennyson's  "half-truth"..    40 

Text-books,  economic 157 

Theft,  defense  of 49 

Things,  the  great  order  of.  355 


PAGB 

Tocqueville,     Alexis     de, 

viii,  292,  297 

Tourists'  expenses 215 

Trade,  87,  219,  236,  238; 
competition  the  life  of, 
100;  as  a  labor-saver, 
189;  origin  of,  189;  na- 
ture of,  190 ;  obstructions 
to,  195 ;  foreign,  197,  201 ; 
statistics  of,  200;  domes- 
tic, 201;  the  promoter  of 
civilization,  311;  or  war, 

which?    314 

Trademarks  104 

Trampling  upon  patriotic 

ideals 336 

Treasury  statistics 200,  209 

Trees  walking 16 

Trial  by  jury 287 

Tribune,  the  Chicago 200 

Truck  stores 88 

True,  respect  for  the 43 

Trusts,  50,  51, 96 ;  the  rage 
for,  100 ;  the  vital  princi- 
ple of,  100;  agreements 
for,  100;  mode  of  organ- 
izing, 101 ;  object  and  ef- 
fect of,  101,  102;  perma- 
nency of,  102,  103 ;  point 
of  highest  economy  of, 
104;  and  the  tariff,  105; 
railroad,  105 ;  mining, 
105 ;  subordinate,  106 ; 
the  weakest,  106 ;  ground- 
ed in  legal  privilege,  107; 
and    the    land    question, 

108,  121;    the    trend    of 
the,  109 ;  trusts  of  trusts, 

109,  112;  with  their  feet 
on  the  ground,  111;  as  a 


374 


INDEX 


PAGB 

natural  evolution,  114 ; 
and  government,  113 ; 
origin  of,  114;  New  Jer- 
sey trust  law,  115;  fish- 
ing, 118,  120;  transporta- 
tion, 118 ;  wall  -  paper, 
119;  monopoly  the  basis 
of,  122;  and  socialism, 
123;  and  the  single  tax, 
131;  an  illustration  of. . .  131 
Truth,  11,  22;  preaching, 

177 ;   apostles  of 177 

Typhoid  fever 115,  122 

Tyranny,  embryonic 11 

Undervaluations    of    im- 
ports    214 

Unearned  increment, 

154,  156,  157 
Unemployed,  the  army  of 

the   139 

Unfinished  wealth 240 

Universal  suffrage 269 

Utilitarianism  358 

Value,  220,  233;  of  land, 

134 ;  of  rarities 155 

Verbal  affirmation 11 

Vested  rights 52 


PAOB 

Victories  of  democracy. . .  xxi 
Vocation,  the  preacher's..  180 
Voters,    dependent    on 
trusts,  113;  responsibility 
of  322 

Wages,  242,  effect  of  trusts 
on,  101,  102;  defined, 
185;  system,  the,  185, 
187,    191,    194,    196;    as 

profits   185 

Wall-paper  trust 119 

War,  312;  or  trade,  which?  314 

"Watering"  stock 51 

Watson,  Orville  E 46 

Wealth,  222,  226,  229; 
saved-up,  68;  unfinished, 
240;  capital,  241;  final...  241 

"What's  the  Use?" xvii 

"Whim,"   "The" 47 

Wood,  C.  E.  S 3,  363 

Words,  connotations  of 163 

Work,  specialization  of, 
87;  pay  for,  179;  ex- 
change of,  182;  a  natural 

condition   189 

Workers,  demand  for 94 

Worship,    fetish 329 

Youth,  pitfalls  for xx 


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